


chandelier still flickering here

by liadan14



Series: Can I Go Where You Go? [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Canon deaths are talked about, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter and Adult Human Relationships, Harry and Ginny are affable exes, Harry quits the aurors, M/M, Neville and Harry are a side pairing, Neville grows some interesting plants in his basement, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Recreational Drug Use, Secret Relationship, brought to you by the vengaboys revival 2019, vaguely non-chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-12-21 05:15:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21069464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liadan14/pseuds/liadan14
Summary: Within the next ten minutes, Malfoy has accused Harry of assaulting him in sixth year (not technically untrue), fucking half of Paris (categorically false), being too stuck-up to accept Malfoy’s offer of friendship (honestly baffling), and being a sore winner (debatable). Harry, in turn, has told Malfoy he’s a prejudiced berk, a hypocrite, a snob of a pureblood who probably just had sex with Harry so it would seem like he reformed, and a coward who ran away to France instead of facing the consequences of his actions. As far as he’s concerned, all these things are true.The whole apartment seems to shake when Draco slams the front door on his way out.“That went well,” Neville tells Harry, sitting in his pants at the kitchen table.





	1. ultraviolet morning light

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic includes a lot of recreational alcohol and drug use, and the characters treat it like it's no big deal. (It can be). It's not super healthy for Harry at least. There's also a lot of sex while not sober. Also, there's all the trauma from everything that happened to these characters.
> 
> (also kind of a warning yes the fic title and all the chapter titles are going to be taylor swift references deal with it)
> 
> (also you're welcome I had to google what songs were popular in France in 1999)

The first time is in Paris. Neville’s gotten them into some wizards-only nightclub under the Seine, and Harry is blitzed on Nev’s pot and Aperol. They’re on a world tour for Neville to collect plants and connections for him to open his own greenhouses next year, and for Harry to lick his wounds from flaming out of both Auror training and his relationship with Ginny spectacularly.

Wizarding Paris is a lot more integrated into Muggle Paris than London, and the whole club, including Harry, is hopping about madly to Mambo No. 5. Pierre, Nev’s Paris contact for rare plants and primo weed, has been handing Harry shots for the last few hours, and now he and three other stupidly tall French men have their arms slung over Harry’s shoulders, jumping and twisting around. Harry is just about crossfaded enough to not be self-conscious about it.

He’s having a hard time sorting out the cues, though, his brain firing a little slower than usual, and the way Pierre keeps kissing his cheek and gripping him by the shoulder is giving Harry a slowly growing full-body flush. Might be the Aperol, though. Harry’s just not sure if he’s flirting or just French.

The song is just winding down, and Pierre’s gone to the bar for more alcohol. He said he’d go for something magical, and Harry is deeply, deeply skeptical of his ability to stomach it. The music’s segued into something French and the DJ is charming rainbows of sparks to ricochet off the mirrored walls. Harry’s dizzy, and giddy, and then he spots Malfoy’s face in the mirror, staring straight at Harry.

They’d last seen each other six months ago, at the trials.

Harry turns to face him.

“Potter,” Malfoy says. He sounds like less of a rude little shitstain than he has in the last eight years.

Then again, Harry supposes he did testify to keep Malfoy out of prison.

“Malfoy,” Harry says.

“What brings you here?” Malfoy says.

“What?” Harry yells. The base is too loud and Malfoy’s voice is too deep.

Malfoy makes a face that he used to make at the stew on Thursdays, on the other side of the Great Hall, with Harry watching his every move.

He comes closer.

“What are you doing here?” He shouts in Harry’s ear.

“Nev’s around here somewhere,” Harry says, then becomes aware this will mean nothing to Malfoy. He gestures over to his left, where Neville is, his hands settled on the hips of an absolutely beautiful French girl as he grinds their hips together slowly to the beat. 

Malfoy looks over, blinks, then looks back at Harry. 

Harry shrugs.

This is when Pierre comes back, carrying about twenty shots of something that steams _and_ sparkles. He hands two to Harry, and gestures to Malfoy, questioning.

Malfoy freezes. Harry shrugs again. 

Within a second, they are engulfed by the ridiculously tall French men, knocking back what can only be some wizarding form of absinthe that no one has ever seen fit to tell Harry about. 

Some familiar blippity-bloopety synthesizer noises crash into Harry’s auditory cortex, and he loses track of Malfoy as he finds himself yelling, “NOW LISTEN UP, HERE’S A STORY, ABOUT A LITTLE GUY WHO LIVES IN A BLUE WORLD” with an enormous group of French men whose names he doesn’t know.

Halfway through the first chorus, he catches sight of platinum blond hair ducking out the side entrance of the club, and he must be absolutely plastered, so he follows.

“Can I have a smoke?” he asks Malfoy, who’s leaning on the railing and looking up through the murky waters of the Seine, cigarette dangling from his lips.

Malfoy starts, looks as if he’s about to say something, then hands over his pack of Galoises. Harry drags one out, sparks it up with a thought and a snip of his fingers. “Cheers.”

“Potter.” Malfoy says. “Potter, this is awful. Can I not even come to my favorite clubs in Paris anymore?”

“Er,” Harry coughs around a lungful of smoke. “Excuse me?”

“I came,” Malfoy says, “all the way to France to escape the _shame_ and _stigma_ of the war, and here you are, stealing my favorite club.”

Harry blinks. “France isn’t that far.”

“You…ugh!” Malfoy turns back to the view, crossing his arms and pulling at his cigarette huffily. 

“We’re only in France for the week,” Harry says. “No worries.”

“Thank Merlin,” Malfoy says. 

They stand in silence for a moment.

“So. Longbottom…”

Harry grins. “Nev’s got game.”

Malfoy shudders. “I am going to erase from my mind that you ever said those words in that order.”

“What can I say, he’s got a really big—”

“Potter!” Malfoy is staring at him, aghast. If he had pearls, he’d be clutching them.

“Heart,” Harry says innocently. “You should let him have a go,” he says, trying not to laugh. “He’d loosen you up.”

Malfoy expression intensifies, and Harry loses it.

“Have you,” Malfoy says while Harry is still chortling, “let him have a go?”

“Don’t you read the Prophet?” Harry asks. “I’m a slut, now.”

When he and Ginny had called it quits, and he’d gotten trashed with Nev in Diagon Alley, they’d run a full two page spread about how he had cheated on her with every single one of his school roommates.

On the bright side, Ron had thought it was too funny to be angry about.

“I don’t,” Malfoy says. “Read that.”

“Wise choice,” Harry says.

Harry finishes his cigarette, stamps it out.

“No, but really,” Malfoy says. “Have you? With Longbottom?”

“Why?” Harry asks. “Jealous?”

Malfoy says nothing.

Harry remembers, suddenly, with the shocking clarity of the truly plastered, when he’d visited Malfoy Manor while Malfoy and his mum were still under house arrest. Lucius had already been in Azkaban, the weight of evidence against him too overwhelming. He’d just been there to tell them he would be testifying on their behalf at the trial, if that was something they wanted. Narcissa Malfoy had nodded sharply, thanked him, and ushered him out the door in less than ten minutes.

Her son had followed Harry to the gate, had asked him breathlessly why he was doing this, and Harry had mumbled something about it being the right thing to do. Malfoy’s eyes had been so sharp, so exacting, that Harry had added, “I can’t stop remembering how you looked when…on the tower, with Dumbledore. You didn’t look like this was your choice.”

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy had said, so raw that Harry had had to break eye contact.

“Yeah,” he had said, and then he had left.

So, Harry feels like he owes Malfoy a moment of honesty. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve fooled around with Nev some. He’s not too bothered what people say about him, and he’s also not going to sell the Prophet any pictures of my cock.”

“And you’re fine with…” Malfoy gestures vaguely to the club, to Nev and his conquest.

“’S not like I’m in love with him,” Harry says. “We’re mates, and he’s a good shag, that’s all. Anyway, Nev’s not exactly looking for a relationship right now.” Nev, to be honest, is mostly on a quest to shag his way through the world. Harry endorses this fully.

Malfoy nods. “Right then. D’you wanna dance with me?”

Harry considers, briefly, how Malfoy had looked, standing at the gate to his manor eight months ago, how he’d looked on the Astronomy tower, how he’d looked in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, sixth year, blood pouring out of him, and says, “Yeah, alright.”

Malfoy offers his hand and it costs Harry a bit of himself to take it. Malfoy’s hands are warm.

The air in the club is stifling. The bass is too loud. Harry gets four elbows to his chest before Malfoy’s found a spot he likes. His head is spinning and he’s wondering desperately how many things he’s said in the last ten minutes he’ll regret for the next ten years. 

Malfoy pulls him closer, until they’re breathing the same air, until Harry can feel the corded muscle in Malfoy’s biceps because his hands have climbed up to clutch at them. He can feel the brand of Malfoy’s hands a the small of his back, where his skin is still freezing from standing outside in a T-shirt so tight it’s crawling up at the bottom.

“Relax,” Malfoy murmurs into his ear. “I promise not to sell pictures of your cock to any major newspapers.”

Harry chuckles against his own better judgment and lets his shoulders drop, lets his hips move with the music. 

Malfoy’s got a bit of the white man’s overbite going on, dances from his knees and his shoulders, and Harry finds it just ridiculous enough to be a little bit charmed. He’s gotten used to dancing with Nev on this trip, and Nev dances like he fucks, all hip. It’s nice to feel like he can do something better than Malfoy, who’s always made Harry feel his social inadequacies too keenly. He drops his hands to Malfoy’s hips, guides him into the rhythm, lets himself get right up close to Malfoy’s whole body, thumbs the bones of his hips rising out of his stupidly low-cut trousers. A noise vibrates through Malfoy’s chest, and Harry can feel it even if he can’t hear it over the music

He spends a song or two just getting accustomed to moving with Malfoy. Pierre drops by with more shots, giving Harry a subtle thumbs-up. Harry’s feeling good by then, riding the edge of being just drunk enough to love the music and the sweaty, terrible air in the club. A few more shots, he’ll get overwhelmed and dizzy, a few less, his head will start aching and he’ll want to leave. This, right now? This is the bit he likes. Grabbing someone’s attention with his body, with his face, dancing up close and personal, taking his own sweet time deciding if he’s ready for Malfoy’s hands to dip lower, for Malfoy to come closer and kiss him.

He’s also maybe lost a lot of self-consciousness by the time Neville comes up to them. He’s spun around in Malfoy’s grip, shaking his hips rhythmically and yelling “Boom, boom, boom, boom, I want you in my room,” with the rest of the club. Malfoy is laughing with him, though Harry can tell he’s sliding beyond turned on into desperate with each grind of their hips together.

Neville must’ve spotted them before he came over, because he’s not looking shocked or horrified. He comes right up to them, grasps Harry’s waist from the front, matches their rhythm easily. He leans down to ask into Harry’s ear, “You sure about this, mate?” His hands are big, solid, and he feels so familiar that Harry debates saying, no, no, can Neville take him away instead. But Malfoy’s not protesting Neville’s presence, not doing anything but staying close, his long-fingered hands bumping up against Neville’s, and Harry’s curiosity gets the better of him.

“Yeah, I think so,” Harry says.

“Be alright if I go home with Nicole?”

“No worries,” Harry says, vaguely waving at Nicole. She doesn’t seem to mind her conquest for the night is dancing with two men. 

Neville grins at them, says his goodbyes. 

“Will you take me home?” Malfoy asks in his ear, and Harry shudders all over. 

He turns around in Malfoy’s grip, loops his arms around Malfoy’s neck, kisses him. Malfoy tastes of smoke and aniseed. He pulls Harry even closer, kissing him deep and sloppy. When Harry pulls back for air, Malfoy’s lips trail down his jaw, his neck, and when Malfoy nips sharply at the joint between his neck and shoulder, Harry know they’re going home together. 

Later, he’ll remember how normal he felt, leading Malfoy from the club, how he’d shivered on the walk to the apparition point but kept space between them in case there were reporters about, how he’d questioned if he was too drunk to even apparate, but he’d managed. How he hadn’t known quite how to bridge the gap, with Malfoy standing in his and Neville’s rented Paris apartment, his hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets, how he’d finally just thought, fuck it, crowded up tight into Malfoy’s space, said, “Hey,” and managed to sound charming and not half as stupid as he felt.

He wakes up bleary, late. He’s sprawled across his bed and his mouth feels dry and gummy. Malfoy grumbles against his shoulder, and Harry debates whether he should just stay in bed forever to avoid the awkwardness.

But his head is aching, and he needs coffee, and he’s a martyr at heart really. So he shifts, rolls until he can look Malfoy in the eye. 

It’s a mistake, because Malfoy is adorable. His hair is sticking up everywhere, and now that Harry’s out of his grasp, he’s clutching at his pillow. He’s warm, and Harry’s known for at least four months that he always thought Malfoy was attractive (alright, so Hermione told him when he came out. Same difference).

It’s different now.

Different, because now he knows what Malfoy’s like in bed. What it’s like when Malfoy pushes him up against the doorframe, runs his hands up Harry’s shirt. How he was just gentle enough with Harry’s nipple between his teeth. How patient he was even though he’d been hard since the club, letting Harry take his time getting them both undressed, how he’d gasped when Harry had gyrated, just a little, on his lap, pressing them together. How, after, he’d spelled them both clean and pulled Harry into his grasp when Harry had already been drifting towards unconsciousness.

So here Harry is, in the too-bright light of midday in November in Paris, because of course he didn’t draw the curtains, watching Malfoy wake up.

It’s worse than Harry thought. He can think of approximately no things to say, and Malfoy draws in on himself the second he wakes up. He sees Harry looking at him and stiffens. He’s sitting up, asking, “What time is it?”

“Dunno,” Harry says. “D’you want-“

“I need to go,” Malfoy says. “I need.”

“Yeah.” Harry says. “Of course.”

Malfoy’s pulling his clothes on as Harry sits up slowly, repressing his groan at the pounding in his head.

“Malfoy, d’you want some coffee?” He asks.

“I,” Malfoy says. “I should really.”

“You’re already here,” Harry says. “We already had sex. Running out the door won’t undo that.”

Malfoy’s whole face flushes red. 

Later on, Harry will realize that this is the moment where he should have just pushed Malfoy out the door and spared himself the trouble.

“That’s not – I’m not _running away_,“ Malfoy splutters.

“Really,” Harry says, “how would you describe this?” He’s not entirely sure where his glasses are, and also not sure where any of his clothes are, and he doesn’t want to get out of bed naked with Malfoy standing there in his trousers, shirt in his hands.

“I…well what do you expect? Would you like me to go shouting from the rooftops that I just had sex with Harry Potter?”

“I didn’t think you’d run away like you were ashamed,” Harry says.

“You can’t possibly be proud of this,” Malfoy hisses. “Ooh, I’m Potter, I’m such a good person I go around pity-fucking my enemies.”

“What the fuck, Malfoy,” Harry says, struggling out of the sheets at last and reaching out his hand to summon his glasses. They fly into his hand and the wire frame bends in his grip just a bit. “It’s not like I gave fucking Voldemort a blowjob.”

“That’s not what the Daily Prophet will say if anyone sees me here. Holy St. Potter, offering Death Eaters oral sex to convert them.” 

Now that he can see, Harry’s gotten his pants on at least, and he stands to face Malfoy. “What the fuck does that even mean,” he says. “You said you were sorry. I believed you. What the _fuck_ does last night have to do with all that?”

“Like you would even look at me if you weren’t off your face,” Malfoy says.

“I wonder why!” Harry yells. “You’re being so reasonable.”

“I apologize,” Malfoy says. He’s drawing himself up to his full height, a half a head taller than Harry, “I suppose I’ll just ride off into the sunset with you, then, and never mind that you _put my father in prison_.”

“HE DESERVED THAT,” Harry thunders. “And you know it.”

Within the next ten minutes, Malfoy has accused Harry of assaulting him in sixth year (not technically untrue), fucking half of Paris (categorically false), being too stuck-up to accept Malfoy’s offer of friendship (honestly baffling), and being a sore winner (debatable). Harry, in turn, has told Malfoy he’s a prejudiced berk, a hypocrite, a snob of a pureblood who probably just fucked Harry so it would seem like he reformed, and a coward who ran away to France instead of facing the consequences of his actions. As far as he’s concerned, all these things are true.

The whole apartment seems to shake when Draco slams the front door on his way out.

“That went well,” Neville tells Harry, sitting in his pants at the kitchen table.

“Ugh,” Harry says. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Neville shrugs. “You seemed to think it was a good idea.”

“I was _drunk_.” 

“I mean,” Neville says, pushing a coffee and a hangover potion in Harry’s direction. “You usually make better decisions drunk.”

He’s not exactly wrong.

When Ginny and Harry broke up – well, when Ginny had sat Harry down and told him in no uncertain terms that this wasn’t working and they both knew it – Harry had moved in with Neville for a few weeks. Just until things calmed down, and Ron wasn’t making weird noises about whether or not he should hurt Harry or Ginny, and until Ginny had moved her things out of Harry’s room. Neville had let him in and had given him a firewhiskey and, later, a joint. 

He’d ended up staying with Neville for two months. 

The thing was, he’d quit Auror training the day after the breakup, when he realized that having miniature panic attacks daily in the bathroom at work was a bad sign, and that he’d relied on Ginny to help him manage going to the Ministry in the mornings. He’d spent full weekends in bed, and that had been normal and alright when he had a girlfriend, except that he hadn’t wanted to have sex, he’d mostly just wanted to sleep and have someone there when he woke up from his nightmares.

He had basically nothing left to structure his days, except that Neville was opening up his greenhouses in a few months and he’d needed all the help he could get, so Harry had levitated sacks of soil around London for him, had helped him plant rows and rows of slightly dangerous plants, and that had segued naturally into getting high in the greenhouse together, because Neville didn’t just have greenhouses, he had a basement, and that basement was full of marihuana plants and magic mushrooms.

A few days into this routine, Harry had been baked enough to tell Neville he wasn’t entirely sure he even liked women at all, and that had probably not helped his relationship with Ginny.

“Want to find out?” Neville had asked.

It turned out Neville was not all that fussy about labels, and it turned out he was easy to please and generous in bed. He was careful to tell Harry he wasn’t after more than sex, and Harry was careful to not read into Neville’s kindness, because Neville was just like that. They had fun together, and a few nights a week, Neville would take Harry out to explore the wizarding club scene in London. Sometimes they’d go home together, and sometimes Neville would take someone else home and Harry would go home alone.

Neville called him “gun-shy”, said he was too worried about what people thought to relax, but Harry found he just wasn’t keen on having sex with someone he didn’t know. He liked the attention, he liked dancing, and kissing, but he wasn’t all that interested in the rest with a stranger.

The Prophet caught wind of this new habit of Harry’s after a few weeks, and while Neville, Dean and Seamus had laughed and laughed at the Prophet’s claims he was sleeping with all of them when, of the three of them, he was the one who went home alone the most, Molly Weasley had written him a series of concerned letters. 

Neville had raised the question of his world trip a few days later, and it had seemed like a good idea, to get out for a while, to put off deciding what he wanted to do with his life. 

They’d been on the road another two months before Paris, and Harry had spent it much the same as the weeks before in London: Getting high, getting drunk and going out. Neville had probably done some work at some point, but he was also a morning person.

“Ugh,” Harry says, sitting down on the rickety chair across from Neville. “Why did I do that?”

“I dunno,” Neville shrugs. “Weird choice for your first foray into casual sex.”

Harry downs his hangover potion and rests his forehead on his arms. “How do you do this?” He asks Neville.

“I don’t sleep with my archnemeses,” Neville says. “Come to that, I haven’t got an archnemesis.”

“Ugh.” Harry says again. “You _knew_ this was a bad idea though.”

“I mean, was it awful?” Neville asks. “The sex?”

“No,” Harry says immediately, “no, it was great. Just.”

“So, why bother regretting it?” Neville asks.

“What if he calls the newspapers?” 

Neville shrugs. “Who cares what they think? They think we’re fucking, too, remember.”

“We _are_.”

“Yeah, but they forgot all about that story after about a week. They’d forget this one too.”

“Fine,” Harry says. “Fine, fine. Ugh.”

“So,” Neville says. “We’re headed home soon.”

Harry, head still resting on the table, groans.

“Still don’t know what you’re doing when we get there?”

Harry groans again.

Neville tousles his hair. “You can’t just look sad until I give in and cook you breakfast,” he says, but that is exactly what happens.


	2. morning comes and you're not my baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry goes back home and considers dealing with his life and his future and stuff, and then just sort of doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this won't be more than five chapters, she said to herself. (no but seriously, it's probably mostly written unless something unexpected happens, like Neville bogarting another whole chapter)

The first thing Harry does in London is move back in with Ron. He feels a little bad for ditching Ron, although he has been paying rent. But Ron’s been alone in Auror training for months now, and Harry really needs to stop living with Neville because he’s pretty sure one of them will start developing feelings sooner or later. Their last night in Paris, Nev had had him on the table of their rented flat and Harry had come so hard he’d almost managed to stop thinking about Draco Malfoy. The worst part was, Nev had known, after, that Harry was still thinking about it. He'd even asked Harry if he wanted to talk.

So, Harry shows up at his and Ron’s flat with his trunk and his as-yet unnamed owl.

Ron wraps him up in a bear hug, and then yells at him for forgetting to write since Bogotá. 

“I was worried she wouldn’t find me again,” Harry lies, gesturing to his owl. 

“Still haven’t picked a name, huh,” Ron says.

It takes about an hour for Harry to finish unpacking and for Ron to ask, at last, “So, you and Neville?”

Harry shrugs.

Ron makes an impatient noise that sounds so much like Hermione Harry almost laughs. “C’mon, mate,” he says. 

“It’s not like that,” Harry says. “We just…y’know, sometimes.”

“You were living together for four months.”

“Yeah, but not like that,” Harry says.

“Sounds like that,” Ron says skeptically.

“I didn’t cheat on Ginny with him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So I don’t have to beat you up,” Ron says. “Excellent.”

“You do know she broke things off with me, right,” Harry says, peeved.

“You do know you were interested in blokes the whole time you were with her, right?” Ron mimics.

“I _did not_ know that,” Harry says. 

“_Boys_,” Hermione says disapprovingly from the Floo. It’s not until she’s wrapping Harry up in a hug that he realizes how much he’s missed her. 

“Anyway,” Hermione says later, over tea and biscuits, “Ginny’s not mad or anything. You know that, Ronald.”

Apparently, Ginny had made very clear to everyone that Harry had done nothing wrong and was still invited for the holidays, and could they please stop reading the Daily Prophet. If Harry weren’t entirely certain it was a bad idea, he could kiss her. 

“So how was it?” Hermione asks. “Did you see the pyramids? You were in San Francisco, right? Did you go on the wizarding tour of Alcatraz? I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Er,” Harry says. “No, I didn’t go on that tour.” He had spent three days in San Francisco getting absolutely trashed in the Castro, so much so that he vaguely remembers cage-dancing in a disillusioned club on top of the Castro theater. Neville probably took pictures.

Something about the utter lack of cultural enrichment involved in the trip must show on Harry’s face, because Hermione tuts under her breath. He feels so guilty about it, he lets Hermione talk him into meeting with some woman from a charity she’s met in her assistant’s position with the Department of Justice, and he even invites Ron and Hermione to come out with him and Neville, Seamus and Dean sometime.

He spends the next two weeks absolutely sure it’s a terrible idea. 

Nev, Seamus and Dean seem thrilled, though, when he turns up with the two of them in tow at Neville’s front door.

“Come in, come in!” Nev says, waving them in excitedly. Seamus and Dean are already sprawled out on the sofa, clearly a few hits in. 

“Aw,” Harry pouts. “You started without us.”

Neville hugs him round the shoulders, sets the joint to his lips. “You’re a lightweight anyway, Harry.”

“Lies,” Harry says blithely when he’s done coughing around the smoke.

Dean cracks up.

“Oh,” Hermione says. “Oh. I didn’t know. That. Oh.”

“You didn’t tell them?” Neville asks Harry.

“Er,” Harry says. “Slipped my mind?”

Neville shoots him a glare. “Ron, Hermione, have a seat. Don’t feel pressured or anything, but you’re free to partake. I’ve also got Butterbeer, elderberry wine and peppermint schnapps.”

Harry perks up. 

Neville doesn’t even look at him when he says, “No schnapps for Harry.”

It takes Hermione about a half bottle of elderberry wine before she braves the joint. She holds herself pretty well, doesn’t even cough too much. “Isn’t this a muggle thing?” She asks, holding it delicately in her fingers.

Neville shrugs. “I mean, sure, but it works for us, too. I’ve got some mushrooms growing in the basement, those are…not suitable for muggles, to be honest. But really, why bother buying Firewhiskey for ten galleons when you can get a bottle of vodka for much less?”

Harry snorts. “Because vodka is the stuff of the devil.”

Nev grins at him.

It turns out Hermione is loose and giggly when she’s had a bit of drink, and more prone to talking for ages about the rights of various disenfranchised magical creatures. Ron has made his way through most of a joint alone and is looking at her like she’s the best thing since pumpkin juice. By about eleven, Harry has stopped regretting bringing them along, and he’s given Neville big sad eyes enough that Neville has relented on the peppermint schnapps.

Seamus talks them all into doing shots before they head to the club, and Harry’s feeling more than a little woozy by the time they get there. Wizarding clubs in London play pretty exclusively wizarding music, and there’s ghastly disco remix of Celestina Warbeck warbling at them by the time they get there, but it’s alright because Harry hasn’t been able to even think about the bloody Vengaboys since Paris. 

Ron and Hermione are the kind of couple it’s alright to go out with. Harry’s known this, they’ve been to pubs before, and it’s been fine, but it’s still good to know. Seamus and Dean, when they’re in an on phase of their relationship (which Harry has not asked about and never will, thanks), are _awful_. They start snogging pretty much the moment they hit the dancefloor and leave early to shag every time. 

Ron and Hermione aren’t like that. Ron is a terrible dancer, to no one’s surprise, but he’s fine to just sort of stand and sway in a group, and he’s very enthusiastic about the amount of alcohol flowing. Hermione’s enjoying the dancing a lot more than the drink, which Harry can understand. Every now and again, they get distracted into a snog by a slow song, but they always come back. It’s a good night. 

Until Harry spots Malfoy, literally from across a crowded room, and that’s that.

He can’t stop himself from following Malfoy into the men’s room, can’t stop himself from asking too heatedly what Malfoy’s doing there.

“Following your advice,” Malfoy says darkly. “Facing the consequences. Apparently.”

“Oh,” Harry says blankly. 

The next thing he knows, they’re kissing furiously in a bathroom stall, and it’s neither the ambiance nor the lighting Harry was hoping for the next time they met, but it’s good to know he’d been assuming, unbeknownst to himself, that they would meet again.

“Take me home,” he gasps out.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Malfoy says, and he’s definitely right, but Harry doesn’t care.

“Take me home,” he says again, and Malfoy agrees.

Because Harry is a terrible friend, he leaves his jacket in the club (Hermione’s got the voucher for it anyway, because she’s smart and she knows he and Nev can’t be trusted with that kind of thing) and slips out the back door without saying goodbye.

Malfoy’s not living in Malfoy manor, it turns out, and it says a lot about Harry he’d been willing to follow Malfoy home on the assumption that he was. It makes sense that the Malfoys are the kind of family to keep a London flat, too, though, but Harry’s too distracted to notice much about it.

Malfoy was sweet the last time. This time, it’s like he’s desperate to prove something. It’s like his hands are everywhere at once and Harry can do nothing but surrender to it, surrender to Malfoy. He finds himself winded, lying flat on his back on Malfoy’s enormous bed, gasping for breath as Malfoy presses his knees up around his ears and pushes into him.

Malfoy pauses then, deep as he can go, Harry struggling to get used to him. 

“Is this alright?” He asks, and Harry remembers how he’d seemed almost unsure in Paris, the first time.

“_Please_,” Harry says.

Malfoy fucks him then, and Harry feels delirious with it. He can hear himself telling Malfoy how good he feels, how much he needs it, can hear himself begging for more and harder. 

Malfoy does his best to oblige, but his arms give out after a while, and Harry can’t help but laugh. He’s still high, he’s high and he’s hard and Malfoy really does feel so good.

“You try it,” Malfoy says, “You’re such a demanding partner.”

So Harry tries it, knees splayed either side of Malfoy’s hips, and finds it’s just as good with Malfoy guiding his movements, rocking him back and forth until he sobs with it, until he shoots untouched, surprising himself, all over Malfoy’s belly. 

Malfoy groans like he’s been stunned and follows Harry so fast Harry thinks he must have been waiting for him. The thought makes him a little too happy, like Malfoy was so determined for Harry’s pleasure that he denied himself. 

So that’s the second time.

They make it through a half-cup of coffee each the next morning before they start yelling at each other.

-

Ron and Hermione are miserably hungover when Harry gets back, so they hardly notice his foul mood. Hermione does ask where he got off to last night, but Harry invents something vague about having gone back to Neville’s and they seem to believe it.

In the space of about two weeks afterwards, what started as Harry and Neville’s fun hobby turns into a sort of Gryffindor reunion. It was to be expected, really, Harry thinks, because Seamus still keeps in touch with Parvati Patil, and wouldn’t it be nice if she could join them sometime, and where Parvati comes, Lavender follows. She and Hermione spend the first few hours of the evening in icy silence, with Ron accepting drink after drink to avoid the awkwardness of the situation. At some point, though, when Harry’s not looking, they must overcome it, because by the time they reach the club, Parvati, Lavender and Hermione are all laughing together and clutching at each other’s hands and recounting stories from school they were all present for.

After that, Nev’s living room becomes the unofficial reunion space. “I’m not complaining,” Neville says, because he’s too nice to complain.

“You’re too nice to complain,” Harry says.

“It is a cross I must bear,” Neville agrees. “Listen, Harry, would it be alright if Ginny came, too?”

Harry shrugs. “Is it still alright if I’m here then?”

Neville gives him a look. “Harry,” he says, as if he’s disappointed, and then he pulls Harry into a hug, because he has strong feelings about how Harry should be kinder to himself, and also, he’s high and Neville gets very cuddly when he’s high. “You’re always welcome here.”

So Ginny comes over. It’s the first time Harry’s seen her since they broke up. 

It doesn’t actually hurt. 

Ginny is hilarious drunk. Harry knew this about her already, but not everyone else did, and it’s delightful to watch her captivate an audience as she talks her way through the latest locker room conflicts of the Holyhead Harpies, gesticulating wildly, doing impressions and, whenever someone hands her one, doing shots. 

Harry (who heard most of these stories over the year they were dating) entertains himself by watching people watch her and gets no more than he deserves when he sees the look in Neville’s eye. He’s got really expressive eyes, is the thing, warm and dark brown and before Paris, Harry could’ve seen himself getting stuck on that. Now, he sees the look in Neville’s eyes as he watches Ginny and knows he’s interested, knows he’s thinking about it, because Harry’s had that look on him.

Neville catches him staring and looks away from Ginny quickly.

“I wouldn’t,” he assures Harry later, in the kitchen. He’s rolling up another joint. “I promise. I wouldn’t do that to either of you.”

“You can,” Harry says. 

“Merlin,” Nev says, more to the joint than to Harry. “And you say I’m too nice. She’s your ex-girlfriend. We’ve been fucking for the last five months, Harry.”

And, well, that isn’t true, is it.

“It’s been a while,” Harry says. “Since Paris.”

Neville says nothing.

“Look, Nev,” Harry says. “I can’t do the casual thing. Not in the long run. I needed to either stop or to be with you, so.”

“So you stopped,” Neville says. “I know.”

Because he’s Neville, he doesn’t mention Malfoy, or that last time in Paris. 

“Well, so,” Harry says. “It’s alright. Go for it.”

“Not if you have feelings,” Neville says. “For either one of us.”

“Do you?” Harry asks. “Have feelings for either one of us?” He’s not sure why he asks. It’s more morbid curiosity than anything else, he thinks.

“I could do,” Neville says. “For either of you. If you’d let me.”

Harry considers for one shining moment how simple it would be to tell him yes, please, to move back in with him and let him cook breakfasts and get high and shag, and then he says, “I think you’re better off with her.”

“Who are you better off with?” Neville asks.

Harry doesn’t answer. 

“Harry,” Neville says, “if you wanted to, I think we could try. To, y’know, be something.”

Harry, who is honestly just an awful person, smiles at Neville. “I know, Nev. But the thing is, I think I don’t want to.” He knows what Neville is like. He’s too much like Ginny. He doesn’t have her spitfire, that’s for sure, but he does have her generosity. Harry had used Ginny as a crutch for a full year before she’d called it quits, and he’s sure Neville would do the same, but this time, Harry would know he was doing it, and it would be worse. “I just…I think we’d be bad for each other. I.” Harry swallows.

“That’s fair,” Neville says. “We’d probably just smoke all day.”

“And shag,” Harry adds. “But Hermione keeps saying I need to think about my future.”

Neville shrugs. “She’s not wrong.”

Harry grasps at Neville’s hands. “Nev. I think you and her would be good together. I think you should go for it.”

“Are you serious?” Neville asks. “After this whole…” he gestures expansively, and he could mean the conversation or their sexual relationship or all of the above.

“We’re still friends, right?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Neville says. “We’ll always be friends.”

“Right,” Harry says. “You should go for it.”

“Okay,” Neville says.

He finishes rolling the joint, gets Harry to take a hit, probably just so he has a coughing fit when Neville asks, “Is this about Malfoy?”


	3. flashbacks waking me up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry hasn't exactly been telling us everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the first chapter with zero references to the vengaboys. also, this fic will now definitely actually be 8 chapters long and I will be updating daily.

The third time is a hundred times worse than the first two, because Harry can’t even blame circumstance or alcohol. 

It’s late November and he’s meeting Hermione’s charity friend for the fourth time in three weeks to give a talk to Muggleborn children on the Hogwarts register about prejudice in the wizarding world and what they can expect when they head to school next year. Harry had been unsure about his ability to be an expert on anything the first time Mrs. Abernathy had explained, but he’s actually glad he followed through. Most of the questions the kids ask have nothing to do with the war and everything to do with understanding the wizarding world, and he’s glad of the opportunity to explain things it took him years to understand to such eager listeners. He feels really useful for the first time since Voldemort died.

Unfortunately, trying to be a proper member of wizarding society again inevitably leads Harry past the paper stands in Diagon Alley, past the flashing picture of Draco Malfoy scowling at the camera under a headline accusing him of bribing his way back into a position of power.

Harry buys the paper and regrets it instantly, as his own face greets him on page three (“Bedhead chique! Savior looks stylish shopping in Sainsbury’s!”).

The article on Malfoy is hardly illuminating. It claims a Ministry source revealed that he applied for a license as a potion-maker, which is not so much news as it is a breach of confidentiality. The paper then goes on to claim that Malfoy must be trying to bribe the ministry with cash, because Malfoy was also seen in Gringotts. It’s less than stellar reporting made worse by adding photographs as if they prove anything beyond that Malfoy was running errands.

And yet, Harry finds himself pulling the invisibility cloak out of his pocket (it comes in handy when the reporters follow him to the store) and walking purposefully in a direction he should really know better than to go in, until he’s in front of Malfoy’s apartment building in Lambeth, paper clutched in his hands. He finds himself testing the wards, stinking his pinky finger through the spellwork around the front door as if that won’t set off the wards as much as just walking through it.

The wards don’t go off. 

Harry steps inside.

Malfoy comes home a half hour later, windswept and visibly irritated. 

He’s levitating three bags worth of potions supplies that he drops as soon as he sees Harry, who has been sitting on Malfoy’s settee wondering wildly if he should just leave for the past twenty-nine minutes.

“What are you _doing_ here?” He hisses. “What if someone saw you?”

“Relax,” Harry says, pulling the invisibility cloak over his head.

Malfoy’s eyes narrow. 

“I saw the paper,” Harry says. “I thought you could use…well…” and he stops, realizing he didn’t know what he thought Malfoy could use. A quick shag? A friend? Harry, historically, had been neither of those things.

“Well, alright then,” Malfoy says, and proceeds to give Harry the angriest blowjob he’s ever received. It does seem to help, though, because after, he’s almost relaxed, almost biddable as Harry spreads him out on the sofa and explores the scars lining his chest, the sensitive skin above his hips. He digs his fingers into Harry’s hair when Harry finally gets around to sucking his cock, tugs, hard, and Harry surprises himself by loving it.

Malfoy doesn’t even wait until morning to start yelling at Harry, maybe because neither of them is drunk, and it’s also only six PM.

“I cannot _believe_ you,” he rants, splayed out on the sofa, shirtless and with his trousers and pants pushed down around his knees. Harry is lying on top of him, making this a particularly awkward rant (it’s a small sofa, alright?). “All these years, you were in fact using illicit means to sneak around after hours.”

“Ye—es,” Harry says slowly.

“It _was_ you in Hogsmeade, by the Shrieking Shack in third year!”

“Yup,” Harry says.

“You…you…ugh, I cannot believe you just showed up here.”

He goes on talking about Harry’s audacity in his school years, and how very dare he, and so on and so forth, but his right hand is still in Harry’s hair, petting him, and Harry falls asleep.

He wakes up gasping for breath a few hours later. The room is dark and cold, his neck has cramped up from the sofa, and his chest is aching from a phantom killing curse. He’s groping blindly for his wand when Draco wakes up. 

“Harry,” he says. “Harry, you’ve got to—

He can’t even finish the sentence, too busy stopping Harry’s mad scramble toward him, away from him, he’s not even sure, he needs his damn _wand_ it’s too dark.

Draco grabs him by the shoulders, steadies him.

“Breathe with me,” he says. “Come on. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.”

Harry follows his voice blindly, sucking in air, shaking.

“Light,” he says, when he’s got his breath back enough to talk. “I need light.” 

Draco gets the curtains open, gets a lamp lit behind them, flicking his wand. Harry’s was right next to it on the coffee table the whole time.

They’re quiet for a long time.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Draco asks.

Harry laughs.

-  
NOVEMBER 16th, 1999

Harry had woken up in Draco’s apartment, shivering, on top of the blankets and what felt like miles away from Draco. His high had faded, and he hadn’t drunk enough to still be feeling it.

He had dreamed of the cave, of Dumbledore drinking cup after cup of poison, except midway through, Dumbledore had turned to him and said, “This isn’t what I raised you for, Harry.”

He was leaning up against the headboard, shivering, when Draco woke up.

“Harry,” he’d said, mumbled, really, against his pillow. “Harry, c’mere.”

Harry had.

“Merlin’s balls, you’re freezing,” he said.

“I cool out at night,” Harry said. “Sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

“Bad dream.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Keep me warm.”

-  
NOVEMBER 2nd, 1999

In Paris, Harry woke up for the first time at half past five. 

Draco was muttering in his sleep, holding perfectly still, shoulders hunched, rolled on his side. His forehead was creased. The room was flooded with light the lamps lining the street outside and Draco’s white-blond hair was bathed orange.

“Draco,” Harry murmured. “Draco, c’mon.”

Draco started awake, his eyes wide. 

“Deep breath,” Harry said. “Take a deep breath.”

Draco did, steady, calm, and Harry almost thought he was fine.

“I need a cigarette,” Draco said, and the tension lining his eyes convinced Harry he wasn’t.

Harry got up, pulled on his pants. He opened the balcony doors, letting in a rush of freezing cold air. He transfigured a wet leaf into an ashtray and offered it to Draco. Draco offered him a cigarette as thanks. 

Harry wasn’t even going to ask, was just going to let the quiet suffice until Draco felt better. But Draco offered. “I used to wake up, that year,” he said. “And he’d be standing over me. He never did anything. He just stood there. I still dream about it. Sometimes.”

Harry nodded.

The silence was heavy, too weighted to stand, and at last Harry said, “I can’t sleep in the dark. My relatives, the ones I grew up with, they made me sleep in a cupboard. It was completely black. When I can’t see some daylight, I. Y’know.”

Draco looked at him. 

“My father liked to humiliate me in front of the Death Eaters,” he said at length. “Just verbally, he would just…make me feel insignificant. Make me angry. It made me feel like I needed to prove myself. Like I needed to be as cruel as they were. I think my father thought it would help me.”

“I dream about Tom Riddle, sometimes. You know your dad gave Ginny a Horcrux once? In second year? Went around petrifying people with a basilisk? Nearly brought Tom Riddle back to life, as a teenager. He was. He was so charming. He almost had me convinced.”

“I dream about the Fiendfyre.”

“Me too.”

Harry reached for Draco’s hands, held them in his own. In the half-light of the street below, Draco’s hands were so pale they seemed to shine, and Harry’s own were so dark they seemed to melt into the sky.

“Come back to bed, Draco,” he said hoarsely.

Draco did.

-

The third time, they don’t fight in the morning.

-

Harry is sitting in the kitchen. It’s four AM, and he’s not drunk, or high, although he wishes he were. He’s still debating the merits of calling Nev and getting stoned, but it’s a Tuesday, and Neville does have a real job.

Instead, he’s drinking tea. Peppermint, like Draco had made him the other night. It does help, Harry thinks. It warms him up. He’s always freezing after a nightmare.

“Are you alright?” Hermione asks. She’s wearing a Chudley Cannons sweatshirt and her hair is a haphazard pile on her head.

Harry shrugs.

Hermione sits down across from him, and Harry knows he’s going to have to talk to her.

“I get nightmares sometimes,” he says. 

Hermione nods.

Harry runs a hand through his hair. “I always thought the rest would be easy. After he died.”

Hermione huffs a laugh. “I know what you mean,” she says.

“You know what you’re doing with your life. You’ve got Ron.”

“And it’s still not easy.”

Harry says nothing, trying to swallow his jealousy.

“Sometimes I think about Bellatrix,” Hermione says. “And I feel so—disgusted, of her, of myself, of everything, I can’t even let Ron touch me.”

Harry had dreamt he was in the cupboard under the stairs, too cold to sleep, too dark to close his eyes, and he’d just lain there awake, waiting for the heavy tread of Uncle Vernon’s footsteps.

“Yeah,” he rasps.

“Ron gets like this, too,” Hermione says. “It’s not…the things that happened to us don’t just go away because they’re not happening anymore.”

“I know,” Harry says. “I wish they would.” He hadn’t dreamed of the Dursleys at Hogwarts, or at least, hardly ever. Only the last few days of the year, before he had to go back to them. And now.

“Harry…” Hermione begins, then seems to steel herself. “Why did you quit Auror training?”

“Hasn’t Ginny told you?”

“I didn’t ask and she didn’t say anything,” Hermione says, and Harry feels even guiltier for thinking they would.

“Gin used to have to literally kick me out of bed in the morning,” Harry says. “I hated it. I just wanted to sleep all the time. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’d have to go lock myself in the bathroom and just. Just.”

He pauses, drinks his tea.

“Do you remember, in fourth year, before the third task?” Harry asks. 

Hermione nods.

“I had never studied so hard for anything in my life,” he says, “because I knew I could die. I almost did. I brought him back that night, Hermione. He couldn’t have done it without me. And every day of Auror training was like that. Y’know. Constant vigilance.”

Hermione reaches out, rests her hand over his. “I’m glad you stopped,” she says. “Ron’s…Ron’s good at not letting it all get under his skin, and he thinks he’ll enjoy being an Auror. But it still scares me every day, that he might not come home, you know.”

“I wish I knew what I would enjoy,” Harry says.

“Take your time,” Hermione says. This comes as a surprise to Harry, because she leaves pamphlets about various employment opportunities all over the flat. “I mean it. I know I…put you under pressure, sometimes, but if you need time you should take it.”

“Thanks,” Harry says.

“Do you want to talk about why you’re awake?” She asks.

“No. Do you?”

“No.”


	4. always waiting for you to be waiting below

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve 1999, in which Harry is a good wingman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Chapter contains blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort-of Dean Thomas/Harry. I'm not putting it in the tags because it's not a real thing, but if that's not your jam, be warned. Also, Harry's inner monologue uses the word "queer" as an umbrella term for LGBTQIA, because this fic takes place in 1999/2000, and also because I don't think Harry would be that educated on the subject even as part of the community tbqh. I know that a lot of people find it offensive as a term, and I know that a lot of people don't - please don't take this as a commentary on whether or not it should be used, but rather as my imagination supplying what words a specific fictional character in the year 1999 would use.

The New Year’s bash happens at Neville’s, of course. They’ve broadened their circle for the night to include anyone who felt like joining. George Weasley shows up with a little box he sets down on Neville’s kitchen counter, and when he opens it up, a self-refilling champagne fountain emerges. Harry is suspicious of magical alcohol at the best of times, but coming from George it seems like a monumentally stupid idea.

He’s had three glasses when Ginny corners him.

“You missed Christmas,” she says.

“It seemed like a good idea,” he says. He’s had this argument with Ron about seventeen times over the course of the last month and secretly, he's begun to question whether it really ever seemed like a good idea.

“You’re coming for Easter,” she says. 

“Ginny…”

“Do you suddenly not like Mum’s cooking?”

Harry is almost insulted on Molly’s behalf, and it must read on his face.

“Well, then,” Ginny says. “You’re coming for Easter. You’re family. Just because it didn’t work out between us doesn’t mean that’s changed.”

“It’s weird, though,” Harry says. “And I never wrote Molly back about…well, y’know.”

“Mum knows better than to be reading the Prophet,” Ginny says firmly. “And she’s not prejudiced about you liking other wizards. What with Charlie and all.”

“Charlie?”

“Yeah, y’know,” she makes a strange gesture. It may mean, ‘Charlie is queer’. It may also mean, ‘Charlie likes dragons exclusively’, or ‘Charlie has done something else Mum disapproves of, like get a tattoo or forget to firecall on Sunday’. It’s hard to tell.

“I really don’t, actually,” Harry says.

Ginny huffs impatiently. “He works with dragons.”

“Ye—es.”

“Y’know, he _works with dragons_.”

“Riiiight,” Harry says, deciding that pretending to know what she’s talking about is a lot easier than continuing this conversation.

“Dragon-tamers have historically been pretty gay,” Neville says, coming up to stand with them. He’s got a crooked party hat on and hands Harry a fourth glass of champagne. “It’s kind of like a shorthand for being queer these days.”

“But Charlie _literally_ works with dragons.”

George slings an arm around Harry’s neck, forcing him to drink his champagne faster by tipping the glass Harry’s sipping from up. “Yeah, true, but we just all assumed that moving to Bulgaria to _work with dragons_ was a lot easier than telling Mum there would be no grandchildren.”

“What the fuck,” Harry whispers to himself, dizzy with champagne. “Wizards are so weird.”

Neville bursts out laughing.

Ginny’s expression softens, then she turns to Harry, suddenly serious.

(George vanishes.)

“Hey, Harry,” she says. “Are you really fine with…” she gestures vaguely between herself and Neville.

“I dunno,” Harry says. “If you can’t say it, I’m not sure you’re ready to be doing it.”

Ginny’s whole face flushes, which Harry counts as a win, but she’s never been one to back down from a challenge. “Fine,” she says, “Can I shag your ex?”

Harry, who had assumed they had been shagging since late November at least, when Nev had lent Ginny his coat and carried her home from the club piggyback, looks at Neville, aghast.

“Seriously, mate?” He asks. “It’s been months. I know you’ve got better game than that.”

Neville shrugs. “She wanted to be sure.”

Harry shakes his head in disappointment. “I expected better of both of you. Go forth and shag.”

It’s a strange night.

He gets cornered by Parvati and Lavender – that is to say, he’s lost a bet against George and been forced to chug another glass of champagne, and is resting his head on the coffee table in the hopes it’ll cool down his brain, and Parvati and Lavender are occupying the sofa, tracing moving henna artworks on each other’s skin.

“Ooh, Harry, you’ve got to let us do you,” Lavender says.

“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID,” Seamus roars from two feet away.

“Yeah, alright,” Harry says, and holds out his arms for them to play with. 

He sits still for about half an hour while they trace floral patterns all over him, and the respite from alcohol does him good (not that he’d admit it). Then Seamus heads down to the basement to sample Nev’s mushrooms and Dean comes by and talks Harry into taking his shirt off, and the three of them start painting paisleys all over his chest.

“How’s it going?” Lavender asks Dean, and he shrugs, makes a so-so gesture with the hand not occupied painting Harry. 

“Seamus?” Parvati asks. 

“Nah, s’fine,” Dean says. “It’s not like it means anything.”

Even Harry can tell this is a blatant lie, because he watched Dean get absolutely shit-faced two weekends ago when Seamus went home with Susan Bones instead of with him.

“Mate, you deserve better,” he says, because he’s drunk and he likes Dean.

Dean looks up at him in surprise.

“What?”

“I wasn’t sure you even knew there was anything going on,” Dean says sheepishly.

Harry shrugs, gets tutted by Parvati for smudging her work on his collarbone, and says, “I mean, that’s fair.”

“So what do you think I should do?” Dean asks. “You seem to be just fine with Neville…”

“I hadn’t been pining after Neville for four years,” Harry points out.

Dean stares at him again.

“I do sometimes listen when other people talk,” Harry says. 

“Rarely!” Hermione yells over from her position as referee to Ron and George’s arm-wrestling match.

“I am deeply offended,” Harry says to no one in particular. “Deeply.”

“No but really,” Dean says. “What would you do?”

“As far as I see it, you’ve got two options,” Harry says. “Either you talk to him about your feelings, or you get trashed and sleep with someone else.”

Parvati snorts. “The king of healthy coping mechanisms, that’s our Harry.”

“I dunno,” Dean says, completing a huge paisley covering Harry’s belly button with a flourish. “Option B sounds a lot easier.”

“Boys,” Lavender says with a tut.

“We’re just kidding,” Dean says. “Anyway, Harry never goes home with anyone anyway.”

“It’s not about going home with them,” Harry says. “It’s about knowing I _could_.”

Later on, Dean corners him by the broom closet Neville once fucked Harry in with Dean and Seamus less than ten feet away. “You could go home with me,” Dean says. “If you wanted to know you could with someone tonight.”

Harry loops his arms around Dean’s neck, pulls him close, says lowly in his ear, “If you want to make Seamus jealous, I reckon we can do that. But nothing more.”

He settles next to Dean on the couch after that, leans into Dean’s space, shares glass after glass of Neville’s New Year’s punch with him, lets Lavender and Parvati giggle over them. It works, for a while; Seamus grows more and more withdrawn, even turns down George’s offer of dubious candy, which Seamus rarely does. He doesn’t even laugh when Lee Jordan turns into a porcupine after trying one.

“I think you’re just going to have to talk to him,” Harry says eventually. He’s still leaning on Dean, because Dean is still warm and nice, but any attraction Dean may have had to him has been leached away by Seamus being a berk.

“I guess you’re right,” Dean says. “One for good luck?”

He leans in to kiss Harry, right on the mouth, and Harry –

Turns away, offers his cheek instead. His heart is thundering.

Ten minutes later, Seamus and Dean are having a drunk screaming match in the kitchen to rival Hermione and Ron’s last row, which had sounded like it was about Hermione’s hair clogging the shower drain and had actually been about Ron being worried he wasn’t smart enough for her. Harry had left their flat midway through that row, and he thinks that is still the most sensible course of action.

He’s not very good at being drunk and quiet, but he gets everyone shepherded out the front door by the time Seamus is yelling, “AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, PUTTING THE MOVES ON HARRY”. He counts it as a success.

“Anyone sober enough to apparate?” He asks once they’re far enough away from the house that he can still hear Seamus, but not Dean.

No one is.

They take the Knight Bus to Diagon, although they lose George to alcohol poisoning and Ernie’s driving somewhere near the Leaky Cauldron. Lee stays behind to take him home once he’s done vomiting up a few bottles worth of champagne, and no one mentions that George has avoided fireworks like the plague since the war ended and no one expected him to stick around till midnight anyway.

“The Hallowed House?” Neville asks, and is greeted by cheers. Mostly Harry’s. 

It’s his favorite club, because it’s situated right on the line between muggle and wizarding London. There’s a wizard’s menu the muggles can’t see, and a clever little combination of charms to make the muggles’ memories of the night just hazy enough to ignore any signs of magic they might have seen, and most importantly, they never play Celestina Warbeck.

Harry loves it, because next to no one cares that he’s Harry Potter.

He’s got Hermione’s hands clutched in his on the middle of the dancefloor, screaming, _“GIVE IT TO ME BABY,”_ in each other’s faces with a ridiculous little hip wiggle on Harry’s part, Neville and Ron yelling _“UH-HUH, UH-HUH”_ back from beside them, when he spots Zabini for the first time from across the club.

He ignores him at first. It’ll do no good, ruining everyone’s night, and maybe no one else will see him or care.

He watches Neville and Ginny out the corner of his eye, instead. Ginny’s got her hair up in a high ponytail, cascading down to meet her bare back. She’s got this fantastic dress on, all gold and glitter, very appropriate to the occasion, backless and ending at the middle of her thighs. Molly would probably burn the dress if she ever got her hands on it. Harry approves of it.

She’s shooting Neville coy smiles every now and again, as they dance right next to each other but not quite with each other. He’s smiling back when he catches her eye, and Harry does not miss that he’s wearing his best shirt, a soft dark red button-up that stretches tight across his chest. Ginny doesn’t miss it either.

They’re going to have beautiful children, if Harry could just get them to get on with it already. He stumbles, trips just a little bit against Ginny, pushing her right into Neville.

He’s just picking himself up when he catches sight of Malfoy, dancing with Zabini.

It’s fine, he tells himself, turning his attention back to Hermione, who’s been joined by Lavender and Parvati, back from the loo. It’s all fine. Malfoy’s allowed to have friends. He makes it through a Weird Sisters medley taking turns with the girls, spinning Lavender around almost the way they learned to at the Yule Ball and dancing hip to hip with Parvati, who has some moves of her own and likes dancing with Harry a lot better now that he doesn’t step on her feet.

By the time the inevitable Lou Bega interlude comes, Neville’s got his hands on Ginny’s waist, leading her into a little salsa while she tips her head back and laughs. She shimmies her shoulders a little to Nev’s rhythm and he smiles at her like a shark.

Harry gets between them and Ron before Ron can see where Nev’s hands go next.

“Do I need to threaten him?” Ron says. “I think I need to threaten him.”

“I think you don’t,” Harry says, steering him towards the bar. “Hiya, Hannah. Can you get us some shots?”

Hannah Abbott, who is way too cool to even be associating with them at this stage, salutes in greeting. She’s got a headband with a miniature top hat on to match her tuxedo. “What’ll it be?”

“Er, got anything that could temporarily blind Ron?”

“Yep.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “Well. Maybe not that. But close.”

“Blind-adjacent,” she says. “Got it.”

She’s pouring the shots, when, unable to stop himself, Harry peers back over to where Zabini and Malfoy were.

They’re still there, and Harry thinks he can make out Pansy Parkinson and maybe even Marcus Flint and Theodore Nott with them. It’s fine, he thinks. They’re all friends. He has no right to Malfoy’s attention, anyway. Malfoy laughs at something Zabini has said right in his ear, and Harry knows there’s no other way to be heard in a place this loud, but his stomach still boils with jealousy.

He downs his shot and, forgetting Ron at the bar, shimmies his way back through the masses, intent on forgetting he ever saw Malfoy there.

“Harry!” Hermione yells, “I love this song!”

Hermione doesn’t get plastered to go out. She doesn’t feel safe in a crowd when she’s not in control of her faculties, and Harry can relate, but he’s just never smart enough to remember that. She also doesn’t need to be blind drunk in order to dance, like Ron. But she does like to get tipsy, and she’s adorable tipsy, all giggles and enthusiasm. She bangs her head to the opening guitar riff, curls flying loose from her hairdo. Ron comes up behind her, grasps her around the waist, and she smiles up at him. 

She’s not the only one who loves the song; it’s a perennial favorite among the wizarding crowd, especially once Ricky Martin interviewed with Witch Weekly and told them all about how he had a wizarding partner whose name he wouldn’t disclose but who had introduced him to a whole new world. Lavender and Parvati get the giggles every time the song comes on, and tonight is no exception.

Harry lets himself get into it, lets himself shimmy back and forth with Parvati and Lavender. The DJ cuts the music out just to hear everyone sing-scream _“BLACK CATS AND VOODOO DOLLS”_. Nev’s twirling Ginny around, catching her close and tight just for, _“That girl’s gonna make me fall,”_ and Harry, who has danced with Nev a hundred times without being serenaded, feels a little sick to his stomach at what a sap he is. Ginny’s loving it, to be fair.

He’s trying so hard not to notice that he doesn’t; doesn’t feel the way the crowd is moving them inexorably towards the little group of Slytherins at the back, until he literally elbows Malfoy in the side.

Malfoy twists around, irritation writ large on his face. He pauses when he sees Harry. “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

“Hi,” Harry says.

Ron has come up behind him, clearly tensed and ready for some form of fight. Lavender and Parvati have fallen back to dance with Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson and really, anyone not involved in this, and Harry feels instantly guilty that they all think he’s going to ruin their night.

“Happy new year, yeah?” He says to Malfoy, and Malfoy smiles at him. 

“Happy new year,” he says.

“That was anticlimactic,” Zabini drawls, and Harry really hates his chiseled cheekbones and the fact that he’s a head taller than Harry.

Harry doesn’t really know what to do with his mouth, or his body, now, and he’s uncomfortably aware that Ron and most of his friends are still watching them. 

“Is it true, Potter?” Nott asked. “You’re a queer now?” The way he says it leaves little room to the imagination of how he feels about this.

This, at least, Harry knows what to do with. “Why,” he asks, smiling jovially. “You interested, Nott?”

Nott’s expression is priceless. What’s even more priceless is Zabini giving him a thumbs-up, so quickly Harry even misses it.

“I swear, Nott,” Draco drawls, “If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head I’ll leave you at home with your mother next time.”

He gives Harry a short nod, turns back to his group, and Harry does the same.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re fucking in the goddamn bathroom to the sound of the fucking Vengaboys.

Draco’s charmed the door shut, at least, and Harry aimed a _muffliato_ somewhere in the general direction of the rest of the world, but it’s the riskiest thing Harry has done since he was the Forbidden Forest, telling Draco’s mother Draco was alive.

He’s never been harder.

He’s the one holding Draco’s legs up this time, the one muttering charms into his skin as he sinks his teeth into Draco’s shoulder and his cock into Draco’s arse. Draco’s tracing the eyelets surrounding a henna paisley creeping up Harry’s collarbone with his tongue.

Vaguely, Harry becomes aware he’s murmuring really stupid shit into Draco’s skin, about how Draco’s his, and how good he feels, and how he should be with Harry and no one else.

“Aw,” Draco says, and he would be mocking if he weren’t so breathless, so _fond_. “Were you jealous, Potter?”

Harry fucks him hard enough to make the cubicle walls shake. Or maybe that's the base, pounding out _"let's spend the night together, from now until forever"_.

“You’ve got nothing to be jealous of,” Draco tells him, after, leaning against the wall, catching his breath.

Harry swallows around nothing and doesn’t respond.

Outside, he hears the crowd cheer.

“Happy new year, Draco,” he says. He leans in close, crowds Draco up against the wall again, kisses him softly.

“Happy new year,” Draco says. He clears his throat. “This was monumentally stupid.”

“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed.”

The look Draco gives him could cut glass.

-

Harry wakes up on New Year’s Day on the couch in his own living room, alone and with a bucket next to his head. He hasn’t thrown up yet, which is always a good sign. He knows that after Draco left him standing in the bathroom alone, he had gone to Hannah and asked her to make him go blind, and as far as he knows, she did. It certainly explains how he’s feeling now. He has a vague recollection of Ron and Hermione dragging him home, but not much more than that.

His head is pounding.

No, wait – it is pounding, but there’s also an owl at the window, and she’s impatient. No wonder, it’s cold out.

He manages to get the window open and let Polly in before he has to grab for the bucket and retch violently.

All in all, it’s not an auspicious start to the new year, let alone the new millennium. It takes him two Pepper-Up Potions to begin feeling even slightly human.

Still. It could have been a worse night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you enjoy my attempt to envisage a time when people liked Livin' La Vida Loca unironically? Did people in 2000 ever enjoy Livin' La Vida Loca unironically?
> 
> (also sorry the vengaboys reference counter returns)
> 
> So, things that totally derailed this fic while I was writing it: Neville wanting to be a huge part of it for some reason, and then me spending tons of time on considering how book!Neville becomes this Neville (that part is maybe still coming), and also The Epic Love Story of Seamus and Dean, which accidentally took up way more of a) this fic and b) my brainspace in the last few days than I intended it to.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Are you interested in more of Seamus and Dean's...whatever? Does anyone else on the planet kind of really hardcore ship Neville/Ginny? #sorrynotsorry


	5. don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the inevitable happens

Harry’s sharing a late lunch with Ginny and Neville at the Leaky a few days after New Year’s. He’s just back from teaching a class for muggleborn kids – Mrs. Abernathy had offered to expand his lecture series into an actual class the kids could come to once a week, and Harry hadn’t even need to think about it – and he’s in a good mood. Flora Lewis, whose parents have a lot of Dursley in them, had shyly told everyone how she accidentally kept making the dandelions on her parents’ patio grow after weeding day. It had reminded Harry of himself at that age.

“I hope they didn’t ruin New Years’ for you,” Ginny is saying, in reference to the incident with the Slytherins she must have heard about from Hermione, because she certainly hadn’t noticed it herself.

“Nah,” Harry says, waving a hand. “It was a good night. I should just know better than to drink everything Hannah gives me.”

Neville nods sagely, but Ginny has to ruin it by saying, “Well, still, I’m sorry you missed the countdown. It’s not every year we start a new millennium.”

Harry tries to smile, but it comes out more a grimace of mixed guilt and pride.

She excuses herself to the bathroom just a moment later, and Neville instantly cuffs Harry around the head.

“I cannot believe you’re _still_ sleeping with him.”

There’s not really a lot Harry can do but agree.

“I mean, how many times is that now?”

Harry makes a face. “It’s not like I’m keeping count.”

“He must have a fucking magical cock,” Neville says. “Merlin.”

Harry picks at his shepherd’s pie in silence for a moment, but Neville’s not done yet. “I mean, what’s your long-term plan here, Harry?”

“Plan?” Harry asks, startled.

“You know, where do you see this going, are you going to keep it up…”

“Er,” Harry says. “I reckon he’ll kick me out of bed eventually.” Permanently, he adds mentally, because Draco had in fact kicked him out of bed more than once, he’d just let Harry come back.

“Who will?” Ginny asks.

“No one,” Neville says, at the same time as Harry says, “Nargle,” far too loudly.

Ginny gives them both a deeply suspicious look, and Harry is pretty immune to it because he’s met her mother, but Neville has not, and also, he probably wants to get shagged.

“Harry’s been sleeping with Malfoy,” he says.

“Wow, Harry,” Ginny says. “Great decision-making skills. Os all around.”

“It’s not like it’s a decision I make actively,” Harry says, and then realizes this is a really poor defense.

“Oh,” Neville says. “Well, that’s fine then. As long as you’re just, what, falling on his cock?”

“I hate you both,” Harry says. “It’s not a thing. You don’t need to worry about it. It just happens sometimes.”

Harry’s very aware he’s the only person at the table convinced by that little speech.

“How did this even happen?” Ginny asks.

“Well, we were in Paris,” Neville says. “And I stopped watching Harry for a second, and next thing I know Malfoy’s about to mount him.”

This is a very poor reconstruction of events, all things considered, but Harry’s still rooting for Nev, so he elects to not mention Nicole or the copious amounts of Aperol, or the screaming match the next morning.

“So, not so much no-shags-Harry, then,” Ginny says.

“Wait, that’s my nickname?” Harry asks.

“Seamus,” Neville says.

“Ah.”

Harry picks at his lunch some more, but he’s lost a lot of appetite in the last ten minutes.

He lacks words, sometimes, to explain things the way he wants to. He doesn’t know how to tell Neville and Ginny in so many words about the way Draco had held him, so carefully, after he’d woken up right into a panic attack. 

He definitely can’t explain that Polly had turned up on New Year’s Day with a scrawled apology from Draco, and that Harry had felt warm all over all day. 

Or that he’d finally named Polly on Boxing Day, because he’d had her for five months, and it had been seventeen months since Hedwig died, and Hermione had been tutting quietly about animal cruelty. Draco had said nothing about it, but Harry could tell he disapproved, too.

Nowhere near as much, of course, as he had disapproved of the story Harry had just told him.

“Polyjuice potion,” he had seethed, pacing up and down. “You, a bunch of twelve-year-olds, just brewed up a batch of Polyjuice potion.”

“Yep,” Harry had said, letting the owl pluck chunks of dead mouse out of his hand. 

“And after achieving this highly unlikely feat, the best thing you could think to do was _impersonate Crabbe and Goyle_?”

“Yep.”

“It is nothing less than a miracle we are all alive today,” Draco said, throwing himself dramatically into an armchair. “A miracle, I say. You couldn’t think to impersonate a teacher and have them interrogate me, no. Crabbe and Goyle. You couldn’t think to just use your _invisibility cloak_ to _follow me into the dungeons_, no, it had to be Polyjuice Potion.”

Harry, who had told this story mostly to get this precise reaction, dangled the mouse’s tail into the owl’s mouth and said to her, “You think my plans are good, don’t you, Polyjuice?”

Somehow, he thinks explaining to his friends that he had finally named the owl just to spite Draco will not go over well.

-

Harry enrolls in UCLWW (University College London for Witches and Wizards, because as it turns out, wizarding academics have been quietly protesting the Statute of Secrecy for decades) mostly by accident. He had owled a Professor Thistleburn and asked for a meeting early in the year, because he had a kid in his class who consistently refused to participate and it was grating on Harry’s last nerve, and Mrs. Abernathy had recommended Thistleburn as a resource.

Thistleburn listens attentively as Harry explains his issue, which is nice, because he’s tried talking to Ron and Hermione about it and neither of them seemed to care much. “What does David say about why he doesn’t participate?” He asks.

“David always has an excuse,” Harry says. “This week, he was nervous about going to the dentist. Last week, he said he couldn’t concentrate because his grandparents were coming to visit.”

“Mhm. And does he always behave like this?”

“No,” Harry says, considering. “Only when I give the class a worksheet or ask them to work with their neighbors. When I ask the whole group a question, he usually has something to say.”

“It sounds as if he has trouble focusing. Have you talked to his parents?”

Harry shakes his head.

“Start there,” Thistleburn recommends. “But if you’re really concerned about it, Mr. Potter, I’m teaching a tutorial this term about Attention Deficit Disorder and some related issues, you’re welcome to sit in.”

Harry’s blank expression and extremely verbose “Er,” in response clue Thistleborn in, and it seems to be something he’s expecting, because he goes off on a tirade before Harry can stop him.

Apparently, the wizarding world doesn’t do much in the realm of diagnosing childhood learning issues. Attention issues especially prove dangerous unchecked, because they apparently result in unwanted and uncontrollable magical outbursts. Harry thinks of Seamus and his exploding cauldrons and wonders.

He’s so interested, he can’t help himself asking questions, and Thistleborn goes on to tell him all about how difficult it can be for a child to put a quill to paper when they know they won’t produce something perfect, and how sitting still in an instructor-oriented classroom can be incredibly trying, how it isolates children who struggle with it from their peers who are better adapted to it and leads them to reject socializing. Perhaps not Seamus, then, Harry decides.

Nonetheless, he finds himself thinking of Hogwarts, and saying, “I mean, sitting still and listening to a teacher for a full hour is hard for any child.”

“Absolutely right, Mr. Potter,” Thistleborn agrees. “Absolutely right, and a testament to how outdated our schooling structures in the wizarding world are. You’ll find muggle schooling has far more advanced ideas on how to create inclusive learning environments.”

By the end of the conversation, Harry has filled out paperwork to enroll in three classes the next week, including Thistleborn’s tutorial.

He picks up a fourth a few days in, because he can and because Padma Patil, who’s in all his classes, recommends it. He first spots her in Early Childhood Development, a lecture course shared with the muggle University. There’s a wizarding seminar right afterwards that adds in a few details, but as it turns out, a child is just a child, wizarding or muggle, and the basics are the same. Harry is so relieved to know anyone in the room that he sits down next to her, forgetting that they only vaguely wave toward each other in Neville’s living room and haven’t actually spoken since the Yule Ball. Padma smiles at him, though, and shifts her book-bag so he has room to sit.

Harry’s always been a good note-taker, and he’s actually absorbed enough in the lecture to add in some of his own thoughts in addition to just noting what the Professor is saying. He glances over at Padma halfway through, and he’s amused to see that while she is writing down the important points, the margins of her notes are filled with doodles, some of which are moving.

She sees him looking, rolls her eyes, covers the doodled stick-figure currently hanging himself on a rope labeled “boredom” with her pencil-case.

They get coffee between the lecture and the seminar, because there’s a half-hour break and Harry knows nothing about the campus yet. He explains how he ended up here in the first place, that he’s just interested and filling time until he figures out what he wants to do with his life. Padma explains in turn that she’s getting a degree so she can teach, at Hogwarts, or in America or Australia or India, she doesn’t really mind. “Anyway,” she says, “It’ll be another five years before I’m through with studying.”

“It takes _that long_,” Harry asks, aghast. 

“My degree does,” she says. “I’m getting a joint degree in teaching and astronomy, so I can always fall back on one or the other. And astronomy’s quite theoretical and takes a lot of nights up, so.”

“Oh,” Harry says. He’s never really considered that there are jobs outside the Ministry. That there are options. That those options could take so long.

“There’s plenty of other options, though,” Padma adds. “Especially in the primary area.”

Their magical seminar starts soon after, and Harry finds himself drawn into a discussion of unintentional magic in childhood and how it develops. He ends up tells the whole course (which, to be fair, only consists of ten students, at least seven of which Harry recognizes from Hogwarts) about how Aunt Petunia kept cutting his hair off only for it to grow back overnight, but the Professor _had_ asked for examples.

“Mr. Potter’s story illustrates a key issue,” Professor Kingston says, after she and everyone else have very obviously swallowed their laughter. “Accidental magic happens most when children’s wishes and autonomy go ignored.”

Harry remembers suddenly how things always seemed to happen to him, when he was small, how he would vanish just when Dudley was about to finally, actually hit him. He considers the incident with Aunt Marge. It tracks, he decides, very much indeed with his own experiences.

So, Harry sticks with it. He takes Padma to a Currys on Saturday and they muddle their way through the computer department on Harry’s half-knowledge and memories of the computer at his primary school, until an overenthusiastic employee comes by and talks them both into a “good beginner’s model for students”. Because fuck if Harry’s going to write twenty-page essays with a quill. 

His day have structure again, which Harry likes. He has a schedule, and he pins it on the fridge next to Ron’s. Hermione still asks about Harry’s future plans, and Harry still dodges the question, but he no longer feels terrified in the aftermath, because at least he’s doing _something_.

Tuesday nights are the only nights during the week that Padma doesn’t have astronomy sessions, so they become study nights with her and Ernie MacMillan. Harry’s got the biggest flat of the three of them, so they take over the living room with spread-out papers and articles. Ron usually comes home around the time they’ve started drinking wine to get through the worst of the muggle theories, and he sits of the sofa with his fish and chips and complains that his future children will be subjected to their incompetence. This usually leads to debates on what ISCED level Snape thought he was teaching at anyway and Ron going to hide in his room.

Padma and Ernie start coming round to Neville’s more often, too, and Harry finds himself raising his glass in toasts to UCLWW several times a night. It’s a nice routine, to spend his Fridays and Saturdays surrounded by friends and his weekdays at Uni. Harry could get used to it.

This is why he’s not prepared for it, when it happens. 

He should know better by now. Constant vigilance, the Mad-Eye Moody in the back of Harry’s mind reminds him. Best advice of his life, and he got it from Barty Crouch Jr.

But he’s distracted, Hannah’s just introduced them to Jägerbombs and the bar is lit up in pink and red for Valentine’s and Harry is just having fun. He misses when George Weasley spots the Slytherins. George doesn’t always join them. He’s got more than enough going on what with running his own business, and sometimes he and Lee Jordan and the girls from the Gryffindor quidditch team do their own thing. Sometimes they meet up in the middle, though, and tonight’s one of those night.

George is difficult, drunk. He’s pushy, won’t always take no for an answer when someone says, “No thanks, I’d rather not drink that.” He likes to roar about what a killjoy they’re being. It makes Harry vaguely uncomfortable, but he rarely says no to alcohol, and he hasn’t thought much about it, honestly. George just doesn’t know his own limits.

He definitely seems to have forgotten they’re in public, and they’re not in school anymore, because he stalks over the entire crowded dance floor to grab Malfoy by the collar. “You,” he growls. “What are you doing here.”

“Same as you, I’d imagine,” Malfoy drawls, and by this point, Neville has gotten Harry by the elbow and pointed him in the direction of this disaster.

George has already punched Malfoy square in the jaw by the time they get there.

He’s drawing back his arm to go back for more when Harry gets there, gets him by the arm and tries to stop him. “Harry, c’mon, leggo,” he says. “He deserves it.”

“George, you’re drunk.”

“Yeah, so what?” George points to Malfoy, who’s just…standing there, clutching his jaw. “You know what he did.”

“George, he was _sixteen_,” Harry says urgently, but George waves him off impatiently.

“So were you,” he says. “So was Ron, so was Hermione, and you know how old Fred was? Huh? You know how old my brother was? He was _nineteen_, let me at him.”

“George, you’ve got to—”

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy says, and he’s almost to quiet to be heard over the music, but everyone around them has gone quiet.

It’s the wrong move.

George goes red, even more so than he already was. “How dare you,” he says. “How dare you just…”

He’s stalking toward Malfoy again, and he’s livid, and Ron’s lingering beside him like he knows he should stop George but he just can’t disagree enough to do it and Harry feels so suddenly and sharply sober he could cry.

“Draco,” he says, “I think you need to leave.”

“I,” Draco begins. 

Pansy is next to him, saying something about how they can’t just be driven off and they have just as much right to be there. Draco meets Harry’s eye, nods once, briefly, and disapparates.

“Coward,” George snarls. “What a fucking miserable, sniveling coward.”

Ron snorts in agreement.

-

Draco’s holding a bag of frozen peas against his face when Harry gets to his flat. He could just as easily charm away the injury in the first place, but Draco doesn’t get rid of pain he thinks he deserves. He’s got scars lining his whole torso that attest to that. Harry has traced each one with his mouth.

“Draco,” he says, hating immediately how raw he sounds.

“Don’t,” Draco says. “Just don’t.” He sets the peas down. Harry had bought them. He had been planning on a pea soup. 

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says, because he can’t help himself.

“Was he wrong?”

Harry says nothing.

“Was he even a little bit wrong?”

“Well,” Harry begins, but he can’t force himself to continue.

“I know what I’ve done,” Draco says. “I know what I deserve.”

Harry’s throat closes around nothing.

“It’s too hard,” Draco says. He’s so calm. “We’ve got to stop.”

“No,” Harry says. “C’mon, we could—”

“Harry,” Draco says. “I know what I deserve. I need you to leave.”

“I’m not going,” Harry says. “I’m not, this is ridiculous, you can’t just decide—”

“I have decided. I’m going to change the wards. You should leave first, or they’ll throw you out.”

“It’s not,” Harry begins, intent on arguing that Draco can’t just decide, by himself, with none of Harry’s input.

“It is,” Draco says. His mouth is a firm line, his breathing is steady and his hands don’t shake. “We’ve always known this would end. It’s good to be so sure it’s the right time.”

“Just because it’s not _easy_\--”

“And how long do you see this working?” Draco snaps. “Another month? Two? Until the Prophet finds out and forces your hand? Until Fred Weasley comes back to life? What do you expect, Harry? I was on the wrong side, and you were on the right one, and we always will be.”

“I don’t want it to end like this.”

It does, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's a little headcanon I've been sitting on: If anyone in Harry's year has ADHD, it's Neville. It explains why his magic won't control the way he wants it to, when he's younger, because he's always trying to force it into someone else's structure and his brain just won't work that way, and it's also why he's happiest, most centered, when he's working with his hands. It also explains why he keeps forgetting where he put stuff. 
> 
> There's more George stuff later on in this, and I know he comes off not great in this chapter, but it was the most true to character I could see him being. Grief isn't always healthy or pleasant to be around.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Also let me know if there's anyone you're interested in hearing more about, because I've finished writing this fic but there's probably a full-length Neville/Ginny fic in me somewhere, and also that damn Seamus and Dean story that uh is definitely coming back in a few chapters sorry.


	6. every night that summer just to seal my fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Harry didn't tell anyone was happening in the last few chapters.

DECEMBER 6TH, 1999  
Harry was just tipsy enough to owl Draco a scrawled, “you up?” when he got home from Neville’s. They’d only just seen each other, and he hadn’t ever actually initiated contact like this before, but he figured, after three shags they might as well write to each other.

Draco responded with, “come over?” only minutes later. The owl pecked at Harry’s fingers when he untied the note, and he deemed it mostly irritation she’d been sent from Chelsea to Lambeth and back for something so trivial.

“Sorry, girl,” he said, and struggled back into his trainers. She chirped, and he offered her his hand again. She let him pet her head instead of pecking.

Harry walked, deciding the night was too nice for apparition. It was only drizzling lightly, and his jacket and trainers were charmed waterproof. He disillusioned himself, just in case Rita Skeeter hadn’t gotten enough earlier that day. It was a nice walk, right along the river, with crowds of drunken tourists lining up at the little Christmas market stands for mulled wine and Guinness.

His heart was thumping almost up to his throat when he got to Draco’s building, nerves jangling louder than his keys in his pocket.

Draco was barefoot when he opened the door, glass of wine in hand. His cheeks were flushed rosy and he lifted a hand to Harry’s own cheek. “You’re cold,” he said.

“’S cold out,” Harry said.

“How are you?”

“Oh, y’know, got followed to the store this morning. Good to know the Wizarding public still cares about my breakfast choices.”

Draco snickered, took Harry by the hand. 

He offered Harry the open wine bottle, and Harry, who had heard about this sort of thing from Witch Weekly and Hermione’s tirades about how sexist it was, tried drinking it out of Draco’s bellybutton. Predictably, it went everywhere and they both collapsed into laughter, Draco on his back on the enormous bed, Harry with his forehead pressed against Draco’s sternum.

He was right there, though. Right by the scars. He could still hear himself, _Sectumsempra_ seared into the anatomy of his newest nightmare. He reached out tentatively, brushed his thumb along the raised line of one.

“Can I?” He asked.

“Yes,” Draco whispered. 

Harry ran his fingers over them first, then his mouth. Draco sighed quietly above him, stretched out to allow access.

“Why’d you keep them?” Harry asked. 

“Why’d you keep yours?” Draco asked, reaching out to brush Harry’s hair aside from the famous Potter scar.

“By the time I knew what wizards could do, I just…it was part of me.”

“I didn’t want to forget,” Draco said. “I wanted to remember what I’d done.”

Harry kisses him then, sharp and deep. He pushed Draco back into the sheets. Draco wasn’t much taller than him, and Harry had him beat on muscle mass. It felt good to press him back, to take his time. To see how Draco looked with his ankles hooked around Harry’s back.

It felt good for Draco to trust him like that.

“What are we doing here?” Draco asked, in the inevitable lull of pillow-talk between former enemies.

Harry shrugged, burrowed deeper against Draco’s shoulder. “Can’t we just enjoy it?” He asked.

-

DECEMBER 13th, 1999 

Harry was chopping onions in Draco’s kitchen, singing a very poor rendition of Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom! to annoy the shit out of Draco and also make fun of his dancing, just a little bit, when the owl popped in the window with a clipping from the Prophet. 

Ron had sent it from work, with the note attached that his mum was sure to write again and Harry had better answer this time.

The clipping was an article about Harry’s employment status, accompanied by a photo of him wearing tracksuit trousers and holding a bag of shopping.

“For Merlin’s sake,” Harry said, throwing the clipping aside in disgust. “I went for a jog before I went shopping! That’s all!”

Draco raised an eyebrow over his mug of tea, which he’d been relegated to sipping after Harry had forbidden him from touching the rest of dinner, because he’d just eat up all the tomatoes and do everything wrong. He picked up the article, skimmed it as Harry got to chopping up garlic and ginger.

“Well,” he said. “As far as I can tell, those trousers put you one step above running welfare scams.”

Harry snorted.

“Out of curiosity, are you going to start working again?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t really have to, not for a while. My parents…”

Draco nodded. Of course he’d be informed about the Potter fortune, such as it was. “So, you’re satisfied to be one of the idle wealthy?”

“Not in the long run,” Harry said, “But I don’t really know what I want to do.”

“Definitely not auroring, then?”

“Eh. Saved the world once, kind of done with that.”

Draco threw a tomato stem at Harry.

“You know about the prophecy?” Harry asked.

Draco nodded. “I think I got the gist.”

“Well,” Harry said. “I didn’t really think I’d have a future.”

Draco said nothing.

“And then,” Harry said, laying in to the tomatoes, “Then I spent nine months going to Auror training every day, and it was just like every year of Hogwarts. Oooh, there could be an evil wizard lurking around every corner, what spells do you use? Everyone’s a danger to you, always be on your guard, CONSTANT VIGILANCE. The only thing that changed was that we had to learn to follow paper trails, which was the worst bit. And I realized, y’know, it’s not that I’m really a big fan of almost dying. But that’s the only thing I was raised doing, so it was what I was good at. And no one really thought I’d ever need anything else. Because I was going to be dead.”

He dumped the onions in the pan, stirring at them aggressively with Draco’s one terrible wooden spatula.

“Ah,” Draco said.

“Yeah.”

“My parents were going to get me a job in the Ministry. With the Minister, or with the law office, probably.”

“Doesn’t exactly sound like your strong suit.”

There was a weighted pause in which Harry didn’t turn away from dinner to watch Draco restrain himself from yelling.

“We’ll never know,” he said, eventually. “When it all started, no one needed jobs, anyway. Why bother, when you can just Imperius muggles into giving you whatever you want?”

The garlic, ginger and tomatoes joined the onions in the pan. Harry let the sizzle drown out anything he could say in answer for a moment before he put the lid on. Tried to put the lid on his own irritation, too.

“Would you have wanted it? The ministry job?” he asked, finally, when he couldn’t put it off any longer.

“I did then,” Draco said. “I thought I did. I didn’t really think much about it. It was what was going to happen.”

“And now?”

“Now? Well, now it has next to no chance of happening anyway.”

Harry set about draining the spinach because he was too angry to answer.

It took Draco until the spinach and the chicken were both in the pan to say, “What do you want me to say? That I’m morally unqualified for the law?”

“It’d be a start,” Harry said, because he’d spent the last five minutes thinking of all the things he wanted Draco to say, and that had definitely been one of them.

“Fine,” Draco snapped. “I’m unqualified now, and I was then, and I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life, anyway. Happy now?”

He stalked off to the living room, wine glass in hand.

Harry washed the cutting boards by hand. He wiped down each surface of the kitchen thoroughly. He set the stove to low.

He could just leave, he reckoned. Walk out the door. Wasn’t his flat.

He went to join Draco in the living room. 

“Do you want to be a potions master?” He asked.

Draco shrugged. “It’s not terrible. I like the work. It saves me from having to interact too much with the public. And I need to do something, with all our assets frozen. Just a question of getting real clients.”

Harry nodded. 

Draco sighed. “I’m sorry for equating it. I know it’s not the same.”

“It’s more the same than I want to admit,” Harry said. “It’s…it’s just hard sometimes. I’m sorry, too.”

They drank the rest of the wine before dinner was even finished cooking.

-

DECEMBER 25th, 1999

Harry had thought he was being kind of funny, standing in front of Draco’s door on Christmas morning with a decent spatula in gift wrapping.

Draco answered the door in his dressing gown. The look on his face when he let Harry in was impossibly fond, and Harry almost felt bad he’d gotten such a stupid gift.

Draco laughed for about five minutes when he opened it. He’d gotten Harry _A Short History of the Southeast Asian Wizarding World_, which Harry had thumbed through at Flourish and Blott’s the other day, but he’d caught Dennis Creevey with his brother’s camera and an apologetic look on his face behind the shelf and he’d stalked off in a mood instead of getting the book.

“Why are you here, Harry?” Draco asked, lying in bed with Harry’s head on his chest, hours later.

“I’ve spent every Christmas at Hogwarts or with the Weasleys,” Harry said, mentally discounting the Christmases with the Dursleys.

“Still not ready to face the formidable Mrs. Weasley?” 

“Not even a little bit.”

“Savior of the wizarding world, afraid of his best friend’s mum. Imagine the headlines.”

“I’d really rather not.” Harry stroked his hand through Draco’s sparse chest hair. “You’re not…seeing your parents today?”

“No,” Draco said.

They spent all of Christmas in bed together, and Harry was hard pressed to remember a Christmas he’d enjoyed so much in the last five years.

-

FEBRUARY 14th, 2000

Polly struggles through the window, a heavy package tied to her leg. 

“Shhh, good girl,” Harry says, untying the package. He runs his fingers gently down her back and points her in the direction of her water dish. She clucks, possibly in disapproval of the package, possibly because Harry hasn’t petted her enough. Demanding beast.

The package isn’t addressed, but Harry’s sinking heart tells him what’s in it already. 

The spatula lies on top, over layers of Harry’s carefully folded clothes, the dog-eared copy of _A Short History of the Southeast Asian Wizarding World_ Harry has almost finished at the bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Closing in on the home stretch here. Tomorrow comes the longest chapter in this fic, and also my very favorite chapter to write. So I'm excited for tomorrow. I'll also be posting a bit earlier, because I have a really busy day. Also, I think we've finally gotten through the very last reference to the Vengaboys. So. Yay!
> 
> There was a bit of a discussion in the comments of the last chapter about whether or not it's okay for the Weasleys and others in this fic to be upset about what Draco and others did during the war, and I hope this chapter and especially the next does and will do something to orient you on where this fic stands on the subject. Namely, that it's an impossible question. Of course they have every reason to be angry; even Harry has every reason to be angry and not want Draco in his life. That's why they argue in this chapter. I do think that any story moving forwards from the time the books are set needs to admit that people do have a complex inner life and go through change, though. No one joins a movement like Voldemort for no reason, even if that reason is the shitty "I hate muggles" reason. In Draco's case, I think the books give us plenty of evidence that his reasons are not so clear-cut as belief, but are more to do with being radicalized young in an unsupportive family and being forced into a series of bad situations he can't seem to get himself out of because none of the other adults in his life even so much as try before it's way too late. And that does not absolve him of what he did, which is kind of a major point for this story: he needs to own that. And Harry and the Weasleys need to come to a point where they can forgive that and accept Draco's subjective view of what happened and his attempts to make up for it if they want to move forwards in their own lives and create a more inclusive society. It's not supposed to be easy.
> 
> So, uh, that's why we're here today. I promise things get more light-hearted soon.
> 
> Also I've totally already started writing a Ginny/Neville epic someone please tell me you will read that because it's happening.
> 
> (Oh, in case you were wondering, Harry is cooking chicken saag because I've read a few fics that feature Harry being desi, and I really love the concept, and part of the background for Harry in my head in this fic is that he's exploring his dad's heritage because of course the Dursleys Didn't Talk about James' family, so he's learning to cook some dishes and reading some books to find out more)


	7. meet me in the afterglow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the world changes, slowly.

Harry spends a week in February living in Neville’s spare room before he can even face going back to his and Ron’s flat. It’s not cowardice, he tells himself, he just knows that Ron and Hermione will instantly see on his face that he’s not doing well. He also knows he’ll just…tell them, and that’s the last thing he wants.

Neville gives Harry a few days before he asks. Harry’s been getting absolutely sauced in the evenings, dragging himself to class in the mornings. He’s been sleeping badly, both due to alcohol and recurrent dreams. Neville has said nothing so far, but Harry can feel worried eyes on him. Nev’s good about keeping his substance abuse to the weekend. Harry’s not.

“He broke it off,” Harry tells him, deep into his third rum and pumpkin juice, because Neville asked and Harry owes him at least that much.

“I’m sorry,” Neville says, but it sounds a lot more like a question than condolence.

“Said there was no future in it anyway,” Harry says. 

Neville doesn’t say anything. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says, “I know he’s right.”

Neville opens his mouth to respond, but he seems to think better of it. He lets Harry continue with his drink in silence.

“It’s just not fair,” Harry says. “I was just doing what people told me was right, and so was he.”

“It’s not the same,” Neville says. “You were never a bully. You never hurt people.”

“Not on purpose,” Harry says mulishly.

“Harry.”

“I know, alright, Nev? I know what he did can’t be forgiven, and so does he, and that’s why it’s over.”

Neville rests a hand on Harry’s shoulder, gently takes away his drink. “You really care about him, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. “I didn’t mean to.”

“That’s not what I mean, Harry. C’mere.” He pulls Harry into a hug. Neville’s the best hugger, and Harry just goes with it. “I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he says. “If there’s anything you need, let me know.”

-

In April, Dean and Seamus allegedly call it quits for good. Dean tells Harry over lunch on campus at UCLWW, because he’s been taking art classes there since the war ended, and because it’s a place Seamus never goes. Harry tries to be sympathetic and a good friend about it, but Dean just waves him off, tells him it was time and it’s nothing to be sad about.

That Saturday, Seamus and Dean both turn up at Neville’s like they had neither of them considered they share all the same friends. Seamus parks himself in the kitchen, drinks Smirnoff Ice straight from the bottle and smiles too widely at all the girls. He talks Padma into playing King’s Cup with him, and by the time they reach the club, they’re both so drunk they’ve become exhausting to be around.

Dean stays in the living room. He’s not really much different drunk, just a little louder and a little looser, but tonight he’s been mixing his and Harry’s vodka with energy drinks, and it’s got him amped up and tense. Harry’s possibly even more drunk than Dean, because he’s been following Neville’s good example and waiting till the weekend to get trashed for fear of failing his classes.

When Padma and Seamus start trading drunken, sloppy kisses on the dance floor, Dean pulls Harry close, dances with him the way he only ever had with Seamus, tight together and dirty. Harry doesn’t protest.

He’s got his routine, and he likes it still, even now that there are no Wednesdays at Draco’s because Ron’s on night shift and won’t notice he’s gone; he likes his classes and his students and studying on Tuesdays, but it hasn’t stopped him feeling dead inside every time he sees a headline about Draco’s business or Zabini’s latest conquest. Doesn’t stop him boiling with rage every time George and Ron discuss the time they made Draco turn tail and run like the coward he is. Doesn’t cool his desire to yell at them that they stole the one thing that’s made him feel like a real person this year. It wouldn’t be fair to them or to Draco. No one is responsible for how awful Harry feels besides Harry.

So, he lets Dean dance with him. Maybe it will help.

This time, when Dean leans in to kiss him, Harry lets him.

It feels like his body’s disconnected from his brain. Harry knows how he’s supposed to feel, what he’s supposed to do when someone kisses him, but his reactions are sluggish and it’s like he’s gone numb and can’t feel it happening. They go back to Harry’s, because that’s what’s supposed to happen, and because neither of them are able to stomach another look in Seamus’s direction. It’s too quiet, though, in Harry’s room. The lights are too bright. Dean’s handsome, always has been, and Harry figures he can give it a go. 

When Dean reaches for his belt, Harry startles back.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he says hoarsely. “Sorry.”

Dean steps back, scrubs a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he says. “No, don’t apologize, I shouldn’t’ve.”

“No, it’s on me,” Harry says, “I just can’t do this kind of…”

“It wouldn’t be fair,” Dean says. “I can’t just use you to get back at him.”

“Yeah you can. People do it all the time.”

“Not you.”

“Yeah, me,” Harry says. “You’re not the only one trying to get back at someone.” He thinks of the flash of camera lights he saw when they left the club, considers that he didn’t even try to hide who he was going home with from the press. That he’d thought, somewhere in the worst parts of his brain, that this was better, to not hide.

Dean sleeps on the couch.

In the morning, he moves out of his and Seamus’s shared flat and into Neville’s spare room. 

-

May and June are filled with the first exams Harry has studied for without Hermione’s help in his life.

“I took you for granted,” he tells her sadly over breakfast. “I took you for granted and now I’m going to fail all my classes.” He’s hunched over a coffee cup, and Harry doesn’t even really like coffee, but he was up late studying and he doesn’t really see how he’ll make it through a class full of hyperactive ten-year-olds this close to summer hols without caffeine.

Hermione sniffs. “At least you can appreciate me now,” she says. She’s doing no better, because her second-year exams in the Office of Law are coming up and learning the law by heart is never easy.

Exams keeps Harry home two weekends in a row, quizzing Padma over the floo and trying to convince her it’s not her fault about Seamus and Dean. The Prophet has such a slow news cycle they start trying to snap pictures of Ron in the Auror changing rooms at work.

The day after exams end, Harry’s in the headmistress’s office at the school he’s been teaching at, chatting with her and Mrs. Abernathy about Flora and how she recently made all the drawings on the board come to life, and how perhaps they should be talking to Social Services about her parents.

“Mr. Potter,” the Headmistress says. She’d not been his biggest fan, when Mrs. Abernathy first came up with this class and asked if the school would consider taking him on. She’d done it, begrudgingly, because the Scamander Grammar School for Witches and Wizards was the only school in London that accepted Muggleborn students who had already exhibited signs of being magical. Also, Harry was teaching for free. It had taken months for her to soften on him, and several nerve-wracking classes with her sitting in the back, taking notes on everything Harry said and did. 

Harry sets down his teacup.

“We’ve been discussing the option of expanding our school to include Muggleborns from the greater London area, even those who haven’t shown any signs of magic. So long as they’re on the Hogwarts roster.”

“That’s fantastic,” Harry says, “That’s—”

“Yes,” the headmistress agrees. “It is. Would you consider becoming a member of staff?”

“I’m not qualified,” Harry says.

“I understand you have been taking classes?”

“Well, yeah,” Harry says, “but it’s only been one term. It takes years, doesn’t it?”

She and Mrs. Abernathy proceed to lay out the terms they’ve discussed: Harry will be taken on as a part-time staff member, teaching three classes of Muggleborn students once a week what it means to live in the Wizarding World, and continue on with his studies in the meantime. His position will be jointly financed by Mrs. Abernathy’s charity and the school. Within a year or two, he could be a full teacher.

After a few more chats with Professor Thistleborn, Harry tests out of half the requirements to teach Muggle Studies on a primary level. He’s already got his practical hours covered, and if he can keep up his course load along with teaching, he’ll get certified at the end of the Spring Semester next year to teach both Muggle Studies and his own brand new curriculum that will definitely have a better name than Wizard Studies just as soon as Harry thinks of one.

Just like that, Harry’s got a job.

It takes him two weeks to tell Ron and Hermione. Actually, he waits until dinner at the Burrow. Molly’s been insistent about him coming round for family dinners ever since Easter, and Harry doesn’t have it in him to protest. She asked a few too many questions about Dean Thomas, but Harry’s gotten away pretty well by saying things like “We’re just friends” and “What did you put in this stew?”. Neville’s here tonight in his new capacity as Ginny’s boyfriend for the first time, though. It’s a nerve-wracking experience. Ron is still torn between sending Neville suspicious glances and being supportive, and when they walked in the door, Bill had looked between them oddly and said to Harry, “Didn’t you and Neville used to—” before Fleur had stepped on his foot with a charming smile.

“So, I got a job,” Harry says, desperate to find any topic of conversation that won’t end in disaster. “I’m going to be a real teacher.”

“Oh!” Molly exclaims, thrilled. “At Hogwarts? They’ve been looking for a good Defense teacher for so long.”

“No,” Harry says slowly. “Primary school, like I’ve been at all year.”

“That’s excellent news,” Hermione says. “There really aren’t enough men who teach.”

“Yes,” Molly agrees. “I suppose.”

Percy has been cleaning his glasses ever since this topic began, studiously not saying anything at all. He looks more than a little blindsided when Molly says, “Percy, dear, didn’t you say the minister’s office would love to have Harry.”

Percy, who has definitely never said any such thing to Harry, flushes a little around the ears. “I don’t think that’s exactly what I said, Mum,” he says.

“Molly,” Harry says as gently as he can. “I would be very, very bad at being a politician.”

“Oh, no, dear, I’m sure you’d be fine,” Molly says. Ron starts snickering. Hermione elbows him, but she’s near holding back laughter herself. “You have such potential.”

It’s taken Harry nearly twenty years to discover that what wizards mean by “potential” is that he’s got a lot of raw magical power, never mind that the only spell he can ever think of to channel it is _Expelliarmus_.

“I like what I’m doing, though,” he says. “It makes me happy.”

Molly softens. “Of course I want you to be happy, dear. You’re absolutely sure this is it?”

“Well, no,” Harry admits, “But there’s plenty I can do with a teaching degree. If I change my mind in twenty years, there will still be other options.” It’s a comforting thought, to him, but he can tell it isn’t for Molly.

Still, dinner isn’t as subdued as it could be. George comes up behind Harry, claps him on the shoulder. “You are a braver man than I,” he says. “Imagine if I’d just gone up to Mum and said, I got a job, I’m opening a joke shop.”

“Worked out anyway, didn’t it,” Harry says.

George spends the rest of the meal coming up with pranks safe for primary school students.

Harry resolves to never, ever let him meet any of the students.

-

The news breaks halfway through Harry’s birthday dinner at the Burrow. Harry’s digging into Molly’s spectacular mashed potatoes when the wireless croaks out that noted war hero Neville Longbottom’s greenhouses are supplying potions master Draco Malfoy. The way it’s reported makes it sound like there’s something illegal going on. Harry sets his fork down in disgust. 

Neville’s clearly making an effort to stay calm, but his ears are pinking up already.

“Neville, dear,” Molly says, “Is this true?”

She’s been good lately at not taking the news at face value, especially since it reported that Ron had grown a third nipple in May. She’s also been heroically not commenting on the fact that her daughter’s new boyfriend had been linked to Harry in the tabloids last summer, even after Bill’s recent slip-up. She’s doing so well, and it’s about to be ruined.

“Well,” Neville says, and his hard-earned confidence seems to leave him all of a sudden. “Yes, it is,” he says to his plate.

George, whose grip on his cutlery had grown white-knuckled when the report began, abruptly drops it, pushes his chair back and leaves the table.

“What the fuck are you—” “_Language_, Ronald” “—doing, Nev? He’s the _enemy_.”

“I,” Neville starts, “Well, that is, I thought, that, um, well. I.”

It’s a wonder to Harry that Neville, with a few puffs of a joint or a beer in him, is smooth enough to seduce half of France. Faced with Voldemort, he’d shown not an ounce of fear. Set him down in front of his girlfriend’s parents, though, and he’s tongue-tied as anything. He’s always only had courage when it counts.

“I asked him to do it,” Harry says.

“What?!” Ron roars. 

“We’re no better than them if we treat them the way they treated others,” Harry said.

Arthur clears his throat. “Ginevra,” he asks, “How do you feel about this?”

Ginny dabs at her mouth delicately with her napkin. Her mother had already made two comments about her lipstick that Harry had thought were compliments until he saw Ginny’s face. “Nev told me all about it before he accepted the contract,” she says. “I agreed with everything he and Harry had to say.”

“I think that’s very mature of you all,” Arthur says, and turns his attention back to the roast beef.

“Well,” Molly says. “Well.”

“You can’t be serious.” Ron has stood up now, looking set to follow George any second. “You can’t. After everything he—they put us through! Don’t you _remember_ Malfoy manor, Harry?”

“And what would you have done,” Harry asks, standing as well, “If your parents weren’t who they are? If they’d raised you believing what the Malfoys believed? Would you have known better?”

“I bloody well would have!”

“Yeah, that’s easy to say now. Look, Narcissa Malfoy saved my life—”

“So her troll of a son deserves a fortieth chance, is that what you’re saying? Might as well just let them back in Malfoy Manor, give them back all that money, let them run the damn ministry again.”

“Ronald, language!”

“No one’s saying that,” Harry yells, “All I’m saying is there’s no reason to punish a teenager for the rest of his life for making mistakes!”

Ron walks out.

Hermione sets down her water glass shakily.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she says. “I need to—” 

She follows Ron out the door.

-

Harry gets high with Ginny and Neville for the rest of the night. 

It takes Neville two hits before he puts his head in his hands and groans. “I’m so sorry I froze up,” he says. “I had it all worked out, y’know, I have all these charts about how it makes loads of sense to work as a potions supplier, and I know Malfoy’s good at potions firsthand and all that. Ugh.”

Ginny ruffles his hair gently. “I don’t think anyone wanted to see charts, Nev.”

“Why’d you do it?” Harry asks. He had, of course, never asked Neville to work with Draco, and Neville had never even given him an inkling that he was. “Why’d you take him on?”

“I trust your judgment,” Neville says. “You’ve never been wrong about who to trust.”

Harry snorts. “I’m sorry, did I take someone else to the Department of Mysteries?”

“Eh,” Neville shrugs. “It’s not really your fault no one in the Order would talk to you.”

“Voldemort was messing with your mind,” Ginny adds. “Special circumstances.”

“Okay, but I thought Snape was evil.”

“Snape was evil,” Ginny and Neville say in unison. They smile briefly at each other.

“No, he wasn’t,” Harry says, “He was just sad. And misunderstood or whatever, but he was on our side all along.”

“I don’t care whose side he was on,” Ginny says, voice tight. “You don’t just stand back and let things happen the way he did if you’ve got an ounce of good in you.”

Neville clasps his hand loosely in hers. “The Carrows were torturing first years, Harry. He could have ordered them to stop. He didn’t.”

“I guess he didn’t want to blow his cover,” Harry says, but even to himself it sounds like a question.

“Come off it, you know he was basically torturing first years long before the Second War even started.” Ginny’s eyes are stormy, her jaw clenched. She takes a deep hit of the joint. “He may have been working for Dumbledore, but he wasn’t on our side. You don’t just let that happen, not even for the greater good.”

“It was bad,” Harry says. “That year. Wasn’t it.”

Neville and Ginny share a look.

They rarely talk about it, any of them who were at Hogwarts while Harry was gone. Luna left on her own extended World Tour just after the funerals ended, and she writes long-winded and incomprehensible letters sometimes. All Harry’s gleaned from them is that she’s just not ready to come home. 

He knows that whatever Dean and Seamus were, before that year, hasn’t survived the way it must have once been.

He knows that, occasionally, they’ll be out at night and catch sight of Michael Corner or Terry Boot or Justin Finch-Fletchley at a pub or in Diagon Alley, and they’ll exchange solemn nods and then not know what to say to each other.

“It was…” Neville begins. “It was the worst year of my life. There wasn’t a moment I wasn’t scared. But it was also the year I liked myself best. When you know you’re right, and you know that you’re all that’s standing between a Crucio and a first year, there’s no other options. When you think you’re going to die anyway, so you may as well do it the right way. I guess I just forgot how that feels today.”

“He’s selling himself short,” Ginny says fondly. “Neville kept us going that whole year. He was ferocious, and he didn’t give up on protecting the younger students. It was awful, everything that happened, but what we had in the Room of Requirement, what we built there, that was something special. We were just kids, but having all the adults turn their backs on you…well, I guess we don’t need to tell you what that’s like, Harry.”

“And you still trust me on Draco,” Harry says, “Even after I left you to that.”

“If I didn’t believe people could change and be more than they used to be, I wouldn’t be alive,” Neville says. 

Ginny presses a soft kiss to his cheek.

Harry sighs, lifts the joint in a toast. “To the moral high ground,” he says.

“The moral high ground,” they chorus.

-

Harry decides to bite the bullet and go to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes the next day. It’s a Tuesday, but it’s still summer vacation, so the shop is teeming with Hogwarts students stocking up for next term. Harry lets himself into the back room, starts in on restocking. Tuesdays are Verity’s day off, and Harry’s never been much good at being idle, his year of unemployment notwithstanding. He actually came by sometimes, before Christmas, when he didn’t have as much to fill his time, and let George give him things to do.

George finds him just after closing, filling Puking Pastilles into a stack of almost-ready Skiving Snackboxes.

“What are you doing here?” George asks.

“Apologizing,” Harry says. “I’ve done your shelving for you.”

“You’re sorry you talked Neville into working with that git?”

“No,” Harry says, and George tenses up. “But I am sorry that I hurt you by doing it.”

George grips his wand. He levitates the finished Snackboxes to their shelf in the shop in silence as Harry continues filling up the rest of them.

“Doesn’t his death mean anything to you?” George asks eventually.

The funerals after the war melded together in Harry’s memory, just a week of unending black and misery. Fred’s had been the last. Harry thinks of it with the most fondness of any of them. He’d been holding Teddy Lupin during the service because Andromeda was still pale and red-eyed from Tonks’ two days prior. He hadn’t been able to hide his face or get out his tissues when he started crying, midway through Bill’s speech. 

George hadn’t cried.

No one was even sure if George knew what was going on. He’d been sitting there, blank and hunched in on himself. Harry couldn’t stop thinking about the boggart in Grimmauld Place and Molly standing over her dead sons. At least she’d been ready for this to happen. George hadn’t.

He’d almost thought no one would ever laugh again, that day. 

And then, when George had sat down at the wake, his chair had emitted a massive, loud fart. 

It had lingered for several long, protracted seconds. The silence after it ended was almost unbearable.

“Sorry,” Percy said eventually. “I just thought Fred would want…”

George had looked up at Percy, who was rubbing the back of his neck, abashed, and he had laughed so hard he’d started sobbing. 

“His death means everything,” Harry says. “That’s _why_ I want a better world.”

“And you think this is the way?” George says. “By just…ignoring what he’s done?”

“No one’s said anything about ignoring it,” Harry says. “He’s lost his father, the ministry officially seized the manor last month. He’s got none of his money and none of the power his parents held. You know he almost left the country? But he came back, and he’s sticking it out here, because he thinks it’s what he deserves.”

“He does.”

“I’m not arguing that,” Harry says, again, even though he’s not entirely sure what he’s arguing then. “I’m just saying, if we’re going to shun him and the others, we’re not exactly making a strong case for them to reform. We’re not making our side look good.”

“And you think he’ll just, what, reform and be a better person all of a sudden because he’s buying Neville’s herbs?”

Harry lets George sit on that one for a minute, because, well. Neville does have some pretty good herbs.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” George says, but he’s almost grinning.

“Alright, look at this,” Harry says, going in for the kill. He pulls up the most important of Neville’s charts with his wand. It floats in the air in front of George, and Harry point to the left. “See, there’s the dates Malfoy got his contracts. There’s Zabini in January, Parkinson in March, Neville in May.”

“Yeah,” George says. “So?”

“Well,” Harry says. “Over here on the other side, we’ve got some charities Hermione endorsed in the Prophet.” (Hermione’s tactic for dealing with the papers is much more effective than Harry’s invisibility cloak. When they corner her, she just talks about the charitable cause she’s supporting this week until they go away again. This has the dual effect of making sure they don’t follow her around much because she never gives them anything interesting to report, and also making something worthwhile out of particularly slow news days.) “One day after Zabini’s contract, half the amount Malfoy earned off it got anonymously donated to the Society for Witches in Need. One day after Parkinson’s, half Malfoy’s earnings donated to the Goblin Integration Front. One day after Nev signed that contract, half of what Malfoy’s paying him for plants again to the Institution for the Education of Magical Children.”

“That one’s yours, right?” George asks.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “That’s the charity I work for.”

“This isn’t proof.”

“It’s pretty close. If he put his name on those donations, what would you think?”

“That he’s an insincere twat trying to buy his way back into favor.”

Harry doesn’t even need to say anything.

George sighs.

“Do you really think Fred would…” he starts.

“I think you know better than anyone what Fred would want,” Harry says. “And if it’s not this, I’ll never mention it again.”

George nods. “I’ll think about it. And if he’s still a git, you’re eating a whole box of those.” He points threateningly at the Puking Pastilles.

Harry swallows heavily, feeling sick at the thought.

“Deal,” he says.

-

Ron is a lot harder to talk around than George, but at least he stops leaving the room ever time Harry comes in after about three days, mostly because they share a flat and it was getting awkward. His final stance seems to be something like unwillingness to admit Harry might be right until Malfoy has proved himself to Ron’s standards.

Harry’s not holding his breath. 

He’s not showing Ron Neville’s charts, either. George tells him it would be the easiest way to convince Ron, but Harry’s pretty sure the donations are anonymous for a reason and he’s not going to undo that. It’s a shame, because Hermione at least loves a good chart, but she seems to have decided to stay on Ron’s side and keep her thoughts to herself.

Harry surprises himself and everybody else by just dropping it. He’s not going to do any good pushing the issue, and Ron and Hermione have every reason to be angry. 

He lets Rita Skeeter corner him by the spice rack at Tesco’s and ask him invasive questions about his relationship with Neville and whether they’re feuding now that Neville is working with Malfoy. Harry takes away her Quick Quotes Quill and says, very sweetly, that he’s never had a feud in his life because he was born in 1980, not 1780, and that Neville made a sound business decision. After all, the war is over.

Three other reporters pretending to be shopping jot down what Harry says and it’s all over the evening news.

Neville goes on air on Lee Jordan’s radio show and bumbles his way charmingly through an interview. “I’m not very good at this sort of thing,” he admits at the start of the interview. “I get so flustered.”

He goes on to explain very calmly that he’s just starting out with his greenhouses, and it seemed like a good idea financially.

Lee asks, “Didn’t Malfoy bully you at Hogwarts?”

“We were eleven,” Neville responds. “He’d look a right ponce if he stole my Rememberall and flew off on a broomstick now. People change.”

“And you think Malfoy has?”

“He’s been nothing but a reliable business partner thusfar,” Neville says, and then manages to get Lee asking about his plants, which he can talk about for hours.

Witch Weekly runs an article on the interview, which features a glossy, over-sized picture of Neville on New Year’s Eve, smiling rakishly at the camera, subtitled by the words, “Longbottom admits to feeling out of his depth in the public eye.” 

Harry has to buy Ginny’s drinks all weekend as punishment for the twenty or so perfumed love letters Neville gets as a result.

(Harry has very little sympathy because he still gets about two letters a week asking if he’s really sure he’s not attracted to witches, and would he like to test it out just to be on the safe side.)

Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes signs a contract with Malfoy at the beginning of September. 

George admits his production speeds up so much he’s already re-upped the contract for the rest of the year by the middle of the month. “Fred always handled potions,” he says defensively, when Harry mentions it. “I was never much for them. It’s been more than a year, I was running out of supplies.”

Harry’s grin must be a bit too triumphant, because he quickly adds, “I’m still not convinced he’s not a git, those Pastilles are still waiting for you.”

Ron runs into Draco at the shop eventually. It was bound to happen. Apparently, Draco was delivering George’s order and got roped into helping him feed the Pygmy puffs, a sequence of events Harry would give quite a lot of money to have witnessed. He was laughing at George’s narration of how he and Fred had developed the Pygmy puffs in the first place, and Ron had walked in the shop’s door and nearly had an apoplexy.

Grudgingly, Ron tells Harry that Malfoy did apologize, and had also written Hermione a very eloquent letter to the same tune.

“Still not sure about him,” Ron warns, “But I guess it’s alright.”

Harry nods, claps Ron on the back, tries to stem the desperate tide of joy he has no reason to be feeling.

-

Harry’s been grading essays in the UCLWW library all week between his own classes, because now that he’s a real teacher it turns out he has to do awful things like that, so he misses Neville’s floo calls and doesn’t read the note Hermione left him in warning on the board before he heads over to Neville’s for the Friday night piss-up.

It’s the first of November, and they’re doing a belated Halloween bash. The air is cold and crisp, and if anyone asks Harry what costume he’s wearing he will tell them he’s dressed as a wizard because he really can’t be asked. In all fairness, Harry’s pretty sure wizards don’t even dress up for Halloween. It would certainly be rude to show up as a werewolf or a vampire.

Neville’s house is decorated all over with cobwebs and pumpkins, and there’s some sort of neon-colored punch that George gives Harry the second he walks through the door, which is never a good sign, but it’s all Harry can do not to drop it or chug it when he sees Draco sitting uncomfortably in the corner of the sofa with Blaise Zabini on one side and Pansy Parkinson on the other.

None of them look exactly happy to be there, but Neville’s handing out punch glasses to them and chatting animatedly about something-or-other to do with plants. Harry gets close enough to hear Ginny asking Pansy for make-up tips.

Draco catches his eye and goes even paler.

“Hiya, Harry,” Neville says cheerfully. “How’s things? Finish your grading?”

Harry clears his throat nervously. “Er, yeah. Mostly, I think.”

“Anyone fail?” Ginny asks.

“That’s just mean,” Harry says, taking a swig of his potentially toxic drink. “They’re ten.”

“Aw, come on,” she laughs. “Someone failed.”

“Nah,” Harry says, forcing himself to sit down beside her. “I got everyone through. I wish they’d at least spell the words _in the essay question_ right, but y’know.” He risks a glance up at Draco. 

Draco’s looking straight at him.

Harry looks away immediately, flush rising uncomfortably at the back of his neck.

“HARRY, mate,” Seamus yells from the kitchen. “You’ve got to try this.” There’s a hissing noise coming from the kitchen and Harry’s pretty sure it’s emanating from something he’s supposed to drink. But then again, Seamus called him ‘mate’, which means he and Dean are still back on and he’s not currently mad at Harry. Harry will take what he can get.

“Duty calls,” he says, and wanders over to the kitchen. 

He’s gotten away with a single shot of the hissing drink, which burbled uncomfortably on his tongue and tasted like bananas, and he’s taking a second in the hallway to just breathe and calm his jackrabbiting heart when Draco corners him.

“What is this?” Draco asks.

“What?”

“Why’re we here?”

“I’m guessing you were invited?” Harry chances.

“Are you playing some sort of game with me?” Draco asks. “Look, I don’t need your pity. It’s bad enough you’ve got your friends working with me—”

“That’s what you think?” Harry asks, aghast.

“What else would I think?”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re good at your job and people hire you to do it?”

Draco really has very expressive eyebrows even though they’re so pale they’re almost invisible. 

“I’m not pulling strings,” Harry insists.

“Oh please,” Draco says. “As if we’d be here if you hadn’t done your…”

“My what?” Harry asks, crossing his arms.

“Your little holier than thou song and dance. We must all pity the poor ex-Death Eaters, for we are better than them, and so on.” Draco’s looking vicious now, fists balled, drawn in on himself.

“For Merlin’s sake,” Harry says, getting exasperated. “So what if I told them to get over themselves. They wouldn’t keep working with you if you didn’t do good work.”

“I don’t want your pity,” Draco growls out.

“I DON’T PITY YOU!” Harry yells, a lot more loudly than he realizes. “I’M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU, YOU MASSIVE PLONKER.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't resist ending it there, sorry. But there's only one more itty bitty chapter left to go!
> 
> Let me know what you think, this was maybe my favorite chapter to write!
> 
> Also, as we're winding down, feel free to hit me up on tumblr if you're interested in more set in this verse, I think I have a lot of unmined headcanon, so come prompt me if you want [over here](https://bewires.tumblr.com/).


	8. the sun came up, I was looking at you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is resolved.

In the silence that follows Harry’s outburst, Harry notes that not only has the music been turned off, most of the guests have gathered to observe them.

“Wow,” George says.

“What a line,” Lee agrees.

“I mean,” George says, “_’I’m still in love with you, you massive plonker’_. There’s a lot going on there.”

“Layers,” Lee notes.

“My life may never be the same.”

“Prime forehead tattoo material.”

“Right you are.”

Neville snickers, then actually puts his hand over his mouth to stop himself.

Ginny’s leaning against him, bright red with the effort of not laughing.

No one else moves.

“Er,” Harry says, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck.

“Well,” Neville says loudly. “Shots?”

George and Lee hurry over so fast, they disturb the sightline of most everyone crowded around to see what’s happening.

Draco grabs Harry’s wrist and disapparates.

Harry’s not a huge fan of apparition at the best of times, but after drinking Seamus’s alcohol and suffering the worst public humiliation of his life since Valentine’s Day 1992 (thanks, Ginny), he’s disoriented enough that it takes him a moment to realize Draco’s just taken them upstairs, to Neville’s guest room, with Dean’s suitcase still open on the floor.

“Merlin, he’s been living here five months,” Harry mutters to himself.

“Harry,” Draco says. 

His eyes are too bright. His hand is still clenched around Harry’s arm tight enough to bruise.

“Yeah,” Harry says.

“Did you mean it?”

“Which part of it?”

“Harry.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I do love you, and you are a massive plonker if you think I’d do anything to force you into my debt.”

“I’m sorry,” Draco says. “But I…”

“I guess I went overboard,” Harry says hoarsely. “I’ll stop interfering or whatever. I just wanted you to…I wanted things to be better.”

Draco closes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says. “And please stop. You can’t—I won’t have people saying I’m only successful because I’m dating Harry Potter.”

“But you’re not,” Harry says, then catches Malfoy’s eye and realizes. “_Oh,_” he says.

“I mean, if that’s still,” Draco gets out, but the rest of whatever he’s going to say is garbled by Harry pulling him close and digging his hands into Draco’s stupidly combed-down hair and kissing him for all he’s worth.

They only make it back downstairs an hour or so later, unmistakably rumpled, hands tangled together.

A cheer erupts from the wild mix of Hogwarts survivors gathered below. Draco turns a shade of pink Harry’s only seen under very different circumstances before.

“About time!” Neville roars. He looks to be very drunk. “Told ya, Gin!”

Ginny scoffs, hands over five sickles with an apologetic shrug. “I thought it would be harder,” she admits to Harry later. “Nev was convinced he just had to get you two in the same room.”

Blaise Zabini and Hermione are just about crying with laughter in the living room, exchanging stories from school. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” Blaise is saying through chuckles. “He made us wear _badges_ that said _Potter stinks_ for a whole year!”

“I would have used stronger language, but I didn’t want to get detention,” Draco says haughtily.

Harry sniggers at that, too, just a little.

Ron cuffs Harry around the head. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he says. “I mean, I’m your _best friend_, we _live together_ but no, you go and tell Neville and Ginny.”

“I didn’t think you’d react well?” Harry says, trying valiantly to pretend the level of alcohol on Ron’s breath isn’t about to stun him. 

“I would so,” Ron says. “I would have been completely reasonable and adult about…” he trails off. “Nah, you’re right. Couldn’t even finish the sentence.” He points an accusatory finger at Draco. “And you! If you even put one toe out of line!”

Harry makes the mistake of meeting Ginny’s eye, and maybe it’s because Ron’s wearing one of his Weasley sweaters, but in that moment, he looks and sounds so much like Molly they both can’t help dissolving into giggles.

It won’t all be easy, of course. The tabloids will be less forgiving than their friends, and Molly and Arthur will barely be able stand being in the same room as Draco for months on end. There will be moments where Harry will wonder what he’s doing, think he’s insane for ever starting this, when Draco’s at his most posh and insulated against the rest of the world; there will be moments when Harry’s at his most mule-headed and righteous and Draco will have to leave the room before he says something he’ll regret.

But then, there’s all the rest.

(Like the actual worst public humiliation of Harry’s life, New Year’s Day 2001, when Ginny, Neville and Draco show up for hungover brunch in matching T-shirts that read “I shagged Harry Potter”. Thanks, Ginny.)

(Or the first time Ron actually sees them kiss, standing in the kitchen in Harry and Ron’s flat and trying to decide what to cook for dinner, when they thought he was on night shift but he actually wasn’t. He’s frozen in the doorway and Harry’s almost sure this is it, this is the time Ron’s going to decide that they can’t be friends anymore. Instead, Ron sits down at the kitchen table, demands Harry cook “that nice curry with the bits in” and proceeds to tell Draco all about “Harry’s weird obsession with you in sixth year” and asks if Draco’s sure they weren’t shagging then, too.)

(Or when Luna comes back and she and Draco and Dean Thomas spend a whole day camped out on Draco’s sofa, and none of them ever tell anyone what exactly they talked about, but they all seem to sleep easier after.)

(Or the first time Draco tells Harry he loves him.)

(Or the fifth anniversary of Dobby’s death, when Draco leaves a full suit of clothes on his grave out by Shell Cottage and then spends the rest of the afternoon charming pebbles on the beach to grow legs and run away from Victoire.)

(Or Ron and Hermione’s wedding, held on a beautiful, clear spring day in the forest where Ron came back to them all those years ago on the Horcrux hunt. “Told you she’d like you talking about following the lights to her,” Harry says to Ron, trying to nudge him out of his case of the nerves. “Nah,” Ron tells him, “I’m pretty sure she just never dropped the warding spells around this camp and she doesn’t want Skeeter getting in.” Harry considers. “Maybe it’s both.” Ron and Hermione make Draco wear a bow tie and be the ringbearer, because no one trusts Teddy or Victoire with anything that small or valuable. Draco grits his teeth and bears it so well that Ron magnanimously tells him, “Y’know what, you’re alright,” right before Hermione pushes the wedding cake in his face.)

(But those are all other stories, for another day.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...there you go. 
> 
> I know this is a super short chapter, but I didn't have much more in me. For this story at least. Pretty sure I'm going to make this into a verse and write more stuff eventually. Let me know what you think, and what you're interested in!
> 
> On that note, feel free to hit me up [on tumblr](bewires.tumblr.com) if you're interested in prompting me, I'd love to do like a little short snippets from this verse collection, but I need someone to push me. I'm kind of a tumblr hermit, so help me stop that!


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